The Matrix: Revisited
by Classic Cowboy
Summary: Rewrite of The Kimmatrix Trilogy with Turles. Everything that has a beginning has an end. I see the end coming, I see the darkness spreading. I see death... and you are all that stands in his way. But for every end ... there is a beginning.  The Oracle
1. Resurrections Chapter 1

Disclaimer: We do not own the copyrights to Kim Possible, The Matrix, or any other books, movies, and songs referenced in this fan fiction. All Copyrights belong to their respective owners.

**The Kimmatrix: Matrix Resurrections**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and Turles**

**Chapter 01: For Every End There is a Beginning**

"_To Dream is Destiny"_

- Unknown

We dedicate this fan fiction to Kim Possible, Ron Stoppable, Wade, and Rufus; for giving us so many great adventures and inspiring us for wonderful fan fictions.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

The skies were dark and clouding inside the Matrix over the city of New York. It was pouring rain and flashing lightning as if signaling the coming end. The code was in chaos; there were no more individuals inside the buildings and on the streets. There was only Agent Smith…over, and over, and over again. An army of them looking from behind their sunglasses to the empty street as the rain came pouring down upon them.

Walking down the empty street was a man who, in seven months, had become the stuff of legends, the very man who was prophesied to end the war…the One…Neo. He walked down the rain-soaked, empty street with the Agent Smith copies glaring at him, some baring their teeth and others just frowning with their deep hatred of him. Neo paid no heed to them as his sights were set upon one Agent Smith, the one that walked out into the flooded and empty street. Smith turned and looked at him.

"Mister Anderson, welcome back." Smith said, still sounding condescending as he spoke that one sentence, "We…missed you." He then looked around at the multiple clones of himself, marveling in his own glory, "Like what I've done with the place?"

"It ends tonight." Neo said coldly to Smith.

"I know it does; I've seen it." Smith said knowingly, "That's why the rest of me are just going to enjoy the show, because we both already know that I'm the one who beats you."

And so the fight for the future of both man and machine began. Neo and Smith fought one another; they fought in the streets as it continued to pour. They had taken to the skies, clashing against one another like the Archangel Michael and the Prince of Darkness fighting for their beliefs. They fought inside the buildings and came back down to the rain soaked streets again, their powers were equal to one another, even amidst the destruction that they caused, buildings falling and craters being made out of roads. It seemed like a very even tug-o-war between the two of them until at last, Neo was lying face down in the mud of one of the craters with Smith standing over him, confused by all of it.

Neo looked up at Smith, stood back up upon his feet and looked at him from behind his sunglasses. Yet, Smith was afraid of what he had said. He wondered where it came from and why he said it in the first place. He looked at Neo and began to step away from him.

"NO! Stay away from me!" He cried, backing away from Neo, utterly terrified, and yet this puny human still just stared at him.

"You were right, Smith; you were always right." Neo said, sounding very defeated, "This was inevitable."

The fear that had once gripped Smith melted away as he growled like an animal, reeled his right hand back, and rammed his fingers into Neo's chest. The infection of Smith's assimilation abilities began to flow from his fingers in the form of liquid metal that began to spread until it consumed Neo. It began to mold itself like clay being formed by invisible hands until a new Agent Smith copy stood in Neo's place.

"I did it…" Smith uttered in awe of what happened; he was in disbelief that it finally happened after all that he tried to do to achieve that one moment. "Is it over?" He cried out to his new clone and the clone had started to nod, but as his question was asked, something began to go wrong with all the other Agent Smith copies. Just like poorly made clay statues, they began to crack and from the cracks came green and white light, until at last every copy began to crumble and explode. All that was left behind were the billions of men, women, and children of the Matrix that were held prisoner by the rogue Agent, all of them Smith's victims…with the exception of Neo.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

In the place of all the copies of Agent Smith were the men, women, and children that were taken by him. Every single one of them hadn't a clue what happened or why they were in the places that they were. Amongst all the millions of people in the city, there was a man and his wife, who found themselves sitting down on the wet concrete of the sidewalk with all the people around them.

Disoriented, the man pushed himself onto his feet and asked, "What happened?", hoping that someone would have an answer; he looked around at all the people sporting that same confused look, and then back to his wife, who was still sitting on the wet concrete holding onto her pregnant belly.

"Hon?" Her husband asked, very concerned about the way she held herself, "Are you ok?"

"No…" His wife moaned out in pain, "My water just broke!"

Panicked, the husband looked around the crowd of dazed and confused people for help, "Is there a doctor in the house?" He asked loudly, ignoring the cliché, "Please! My wife's in labor!"

From behind the crowd came a voice calling out, "Move out of the way! I'm a doctor! Please, let me through! I'm a doctor!"

The man who called for help saw the people around him stand to one side to allow the anonymous doctor through. That was when he saw a beautiful woman with reddish brown hair and green eyes who was also pregnant with the small, round belly she sported.

"I'm a doctor." She said to the man and his wife, who was now moaning in agony down on the concrete. The doctor came down to the ground, looked between the pregnant woman's legs and made her prognosis, "Oh dear, she's dilated pretty wide. The kid's coming fast, and we won't make it to a hospital." She reached up, parted her patient's legs and began the procedure, "Push, Misses…"

"Stoppable!" The patient grinded through her teeth as she pushed the baby through her birth canal.

Only fifteen minutes had passed, but they were the longest fifteen minutes that Mrs. Stoppable had ever endured in her entire life. It was equally intense for Mr. Stoppable, who was nervous as could be about what could go wrong. Yet, all that was laid aside when they heard the first cries of their newborn child.

"It's a boy!" The doctor announced to the Stoppables. She cut the umbilical cord, wrapped the little newborn in her jacket, and handed him to his parents.

"He's so beautiful!" Mrs. Stoppable exhaled, holding her son, "Thank you, doctor."

"No big." The doctor smiled back, "But I've got to introduce myself. I'm Doctor Possible, and what do you plan to call him?"

"Well, to extend your courtesy" Misses Stoppable said, "I'm Mary Stoppable, this is my husband: Joseph, and this little man; we'll call him…Ronald Stoppable."

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Sixteen years later…

…In the Real World….

Down in the bowels of the world were ancient service and waste tunnels that used to flow for cities spanning hundreds of miles above them. Flying through the tunnels was a hovercraft that hummed its way over the stagnant debris, sending out sparks of electricity and gently illuminating the darkness with blue hues from its multiple hover disks. The hovercraft was named the _Nebuchadnezzar II_ (or _Neb II _for short), and upon the bridge of that ship were two men piloting it to a safe location.

Both of these men were African-American, one was much older than the other and had his head clean shaven; this was Morpheus, named after the Greek god of Dreams, and the captain of the _Neb II_. The other man was much younger than Morpheus with long hair made into dreadlocks and had a small goatee and mustache; this was the _Neb II_'s operator: Link.

"Alright, Link." Morpheus said, standing up from the pilot chair, "Keep an eye out. If they've reactivated the agents, the sentinels could have been reactivated as well."

"Aye, sir." Link acknowledged as he followed Morpheus down to the main deck of the _Neb II_. On the main deck was a small semi-circle of chairs in an environment of gray steel and wires running up the walls like so much kudzu. At the head of the semi-circle was Link's station, surrounding him with keyboards and screens, as Morpheus addressed his crew, two of which were standing inside the semi-circle of chairs. One, a young African-American woman, and next to her, a young Asian man.

"Niobe, Ghost." He addressed them, "You're with me. We've a council meeting to attend."

"Great." Ghost sighed, walking over and sitting down in one of the chairs in the semi-circle, "Watching who can come up with the biggest words, you or the Architect, is my idea of a blast."

Morpheus picked up on Ghost's sarcasm and had a good answer for it, "Would you prefer Release Tube Monitoring Duty again, Ghost?" He asked in a very playful threat as he sat down in his chair.

"Sir, no, sir!" Ghost said sitting up and giving a stern salute, "Anything but that, sir!"

"Alright then." Morpheus said while Link brought out a very long needle, preparing to stick it under Morpheus' headrest, "Let's not be late."

And the jack-in started.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Inside the Matrix, a 1998 jet black Dodge Charger roared down the streets of New York City, heading to the council meeting that Morpheus was talking about. This was brought about by the sacrifice of the very last One, Neo, whose dying wish was for peace, and so the Earth Council was formed. This council consisted of representatives from Zion and the Machine capital: Zero One. The Earth Council worked at organizing slow release of trapped humans as well as cleaning the sky above Earth, which had been darkened for longer than anyone could remember. Yet, Morpheus did not come to the Matrix to discuss the clean-up effort or the release of humans. His reasons were about some disturbances in the Matrix.

The Dodge Charger came to a stop outside the United Nations building and out of it came the three Zion Representatives. Morpheus took a look up at the building, thinking about the ironies around that building, how the machines and humans took the floor there. Morpheus straightened out his alligator skin coat and stepped through the front doors, passing by the foyer with the gold colored symbol of the U.N., the world surrounded by two olive leaf branches, to the elevator to the their desired floor.

At the thirteenth floor, the trio walked into a waiting room with a secretary's desk that sat at the side of a pair of swinging doors. They walked up to the secretary, a young bleached blonde woman, who looked up at them and smiled as if she'd been waiting for them.

"Representative Morpheus" she smiled, "The Architect has been expecting you."

Ghost leaned over to Niobe and whispered, "Freaky how Colonel Sanders does that."

"Your associates may wait out here," The Secretary continued, "he wishes for a private conversation with you, Representative Morpheus."

Morpheus nodded, while Niobe and Ghost took their seats in the waiting area. He followed the secretary through the swinging doors, down a long hallway to one door at the end of the hall. When the secretary had left, he opened the door, and walked through it to find himself in a completely white room that felt like the inside of a padded room of a sanitarium with numerous TV sets around him displaying different images from all over the Matrix. Morpheus saw the back of a chair in front of him and knew who was sitting there.

"Hello, Architect." Morpheus said.

The chair turned around and sitting there was that old, white-suited man with a silver pen-remote in his right hand, The Architect.

"Greetings, Representative Morpheus. I know why you're here and I regret to inform you that I am unable to give you the complete reason for the reactivation of the Agent programs." The Architect said very bored and emotionless.

"And why is that?" Morpheus asked, "This is…"

The Architect cut him off and finished his sentence for him, "A concern of all humans not connected to the Matrix and the Council of Zion fears that this could be a sign of our backing out of the treaty. I can tell you that the Agents are programmed not to harm Zion Representatives whatsoever. An event has occurred in the Matrix, which has brought uneasiness to the powers that be. Ergo, the Agents have been reactivated to isolate this "anomaly" and delete its existence and all it has affected if possible. Concurrently, you have little or nothing to worry about and should avoid this issue in the future."

"Anomaly?" Morpheus asked rather confused about the Architects articulation, "An anomaly like the One…like Neo?"

"No." The architect answered, drawing in another breath for one of his long explanations, "An anomaly similar to, but not the same as the One. It is merely a dangerous glitch in the Matrix, conceivably a side effect of the Smith Program sixteen years ago, or from the release of the One's powers combined with those of the Smith Program. Rest assured, we will isolate and neutralize this malfunction in a matter of cycles. If that is all, I shall see you at the council meeting shortly. Good day, Representative Morpheus."

Morpheus walked out of the Architect's office and back through the hallway of doors, his mind filled with thoughts and notions about what the Architect meant by the new anomaly. He had thought that if it was just a simple glitch, then it could be fixed without the reactivation of the Agents. When that thought had occurred to him, Morpheus was already in at the waiting area where Niobe and Ghost stood waiting for him.

"What'd you guys talk about?" Niobe asked Morpheus as the three of them had stepped into the elevator.

"It's nothing to do with breaking the peace treaty." Morpheus answered as he pressed the lobby button.

"Then what is it?" Niobe asked, hoping to get a straight answer

At that moment, Morpheus had figured out something about the machines.

"Something has them scared," He stated, "And I intend to find out what it is."

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

In the state of Colorado was a small, suburban town called Middleton, which was part of two other cities, Upperton and Lowerton. However, it was Middleton that was the home to a set of very special individuals.

The first was the teenage hero: Kim Possible, a young athletic woman who had long brownish red hair that came down to her lower back. Her face was smooth and soft like porcelain, and set in her doll-like face were a pair of green eyes like precious gems. This young woman was responsible for so many great deeds around the globe that to any normal person it would seem inconceivable that a young woman could do all of it, and be a normal, high-school girl, head cheerleader, swim team member, yearbook committee member, and on the honor roll. She really was quite super-human when it came to her own deeds.

Then there was Kim's information gatherer, a ten year old genius named Wade, who was a rather pudgy boy of African-American decent with a great knack for gathering any information Kim needed either for personal or mission use. Wade was also super-human, but in his mental faculties instead of his physical qualities like Kim. After all, Wade did earn a doctorate in every field of study at the age of nine.

Last, but certainly not least, was Kim Possible's sidekick: Ron Stoppable, a rather lanky kind of boy with shortly cut and messy blonde hair, which added to the innocent look he cultivated with his brown eyes, freckles, and rather large ears. Ron was always quick with a joke, especially when the occasion arose. Even in the most dire of situations, Ron always had a sunny disposition, at least when he wasn't petrified with fear at whatever new plan of destruction Kim's enemies had concocted in their various take-over-the-world-ventures. While Kim and Wade were super-human in their own way, Ron was super-human in a very different respect. His super-human traits lied within his heart. Even after everything he had been through, he was still willing to try to be friends with anyone, but he was still quite human with his fears. Especially when they related to his bad memories of a summer camp called, "Camp Wannaweep", but thanks to his life with Kim, he was able to overcome some of his fears. In all the missions that he'd gone on with Kim, the two of them were always such a solid team for reasons that seem to defy all logic and reason. At least, that's how many of Kim's foes saw it.

Yet, recently some strange things had been happening to Ron, things that he couldn't quite explain to anyone, let alone himself. Whenever he would lose something, even something as simple as a set of keys, he'd imagine where they would be and they'd be there, unlike times before when they were in the last place he'd ever look. Then there were the dreams. He tried to tell this to his parents, but they would always tell him that it was probably a result of the onset of puberty, but Ron knew that it had to be a lot more than just that. One day one his way to school, he was mulling over it his head as he had done countless times before. As he did, his pet, a naked mole rat named Rufus, crawled up onto Ron's shoulder and chirped in his ear, and Ron, in his weird way, understood everything that Rufus was trying to say.

"I know I should forget about it, Rufus, but I just can't." Ron said, his voice sounding heavy with what he had on his mind.

Before coming to his school, Middleton High, Home of the Mad Dogs, Ron passed a small playground with children at play. Some of the children were running across the grass, some playing on the jungle gym, and others in the sandbox. Walking past, Ron couldn't help remembering back to preschool when he and Kim first met on the playground. It truly was one of the greatest days of his life. Yet, as Ron looked in the sandbox, he saw a little boy there playing with something. He stopped and slowly walked over for reasons that he couldn't explain. The sounds of the playing children were drowned out all around him as he came closer and closer to the sandbox.

Inside, Ron saw a little boy playing with spoons that were evenly set in front of him as he sat cross-legged in the sand. He took one of the spoons and looked at it like a diamond cutter looks at a raw diamond, imagining the different facets in his mind, and soon, the spoon began to bend in the boy's grip; normally, Ron would have been very freaked out by this, but he wasn't, for some reason. Instead, he felt a very sharp feeling of déjà vu; that this had happened before. So, in curiosity, Ron sat down in front of the boy, who handed one of the spoons to Ron, who looked at it, remembering all the different bends that the spoon did in that boy's hand.

"Do not try to bend the spoon." The boy said, sounding like an old Chinese Tao Master, "That's impossible…instead only try to realize the truth."

The déjà vu was in full force when Ron was about to ask what the truth was, but then for no apparent reason he already knew what the boy was talking about.

"There is no spoon." Ron said calmly, looking at his distorted reflection in the spoon's surface, and then looking to the boy who nodded at his answer.

"Then you will see it is not the spoon that bends; it is only yourself." The boy added as Ron continued to stare at the utensil.

As he stared, he began to bend his neck to the left and saw the spoon bending with him. It was as if the spoon was imitating the movements of his spine like a reflection in a mirror. Just as the spoon began its small bend, he heard Rufus chirp into his ear; he turned sharply to him, and knew what he was chirping about; he would be late for school if he didn't hurry up. After the interruption, Ron looked back at the spoon and saw it was straight again. He looked at the smiling boy as he laid down the spoon, got back up, and headed for school. Ron couldn't help looking back at that sandbox and the boy sitting there as he made his way out of the playground.

Rufus chirped once again at Ron.

"I know, buddy." Ron agreed as he looked back at the sandbox again, "Weird."

Ron arrived at school in the nick of time and took his usual seat next to Kim.

"Hey, Kim." Ron said very casually as he sat down.

Kim looked at Ron and saw a seriousness in his face that only appeared when there was something very wrong. She knew this and wanted to know what was up with her friend.

"What's up with you this morning, Ron?" She asked, hoping to sound supportive

Ron took one glance at Kim and said, "Nothing, Kim."

They couldn't continue their conversation any further as class had already started. First period was English and they were discussing how dreams can be used as devices to foreshadow future events or reveal something deep within the character themselves. The moment that Ron heard the discussion about dreams, he was intensely focused upon it, thinking that he might find out something about his own dreams. Yet, as Ron Stoppable thought about the subject of dreams, another sense of déjà vu came over him and he heard a deep voice in his head.

_Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?_

That time, it wasn't just a feeling that Ron had heard it before; he was starting to think that he actually _did_ do all those things before. The feeling and knowing had become so strong that Ron had completely lost track of time and the things around him, until a familiar voice brought him back.

"Ron?" The voice asked, until Ron snapped back to reality and saw Kim was standing over him. He also saw the clock behind her and saw that he had zoned out for the whole day from about nine to three.

"Ron." Kim said, "Class is over, let's get going."

The two of them walked into the halls and came up to Kim's locker.

"Were you listening to me, Ron?" Kim asked her best friend with a twinge of interrogation in her voice.

"Huh, what?" Ron asked, realizing where he was and said, "Oh yeah, I was listening, KP."

"Then what did I say?" Kim smirked at Ron, resting her hands on her hips and letting her thumbs slide into the waist of her baggy cargo pants.

"Uh…" Ron gulped; he really had no idea what was said back there in class since he had lost all track of what was going on around him for most of the day.

"Ruhoh!" Rufus chirped before slinking back into Ron's pants pocket, his eyes peeking over the lip of the pocket.

"I asked if you had any idea what you were going to do for your final English paper. You know its due in a week, right?"

"Hmmm." Ron mused as he rubbed his chin, "It's supposed to be a personal study, right? I remember hearing that a few days ago. Maybe I'll write about some of the weird dreams I've been having."

"What kind of dreams?" Kim asked immediately, intrigued by what Ron was telling her.

Ron blushed and looked away, "You'll laugh at me if I tell you."

"No, I won't!" Kim reassured in her very sweet voice, "We've been best friends all our lives. When have I ever laughed at you?"

Ron looked back at her and shot her a cocked eyebrow look, giving a great hint of his skepticism.

"A lot?" Kim asked restating herself

"I dreamed I could do…things…" Ron said, trying to remember them as he leaned against the lockers.

"What kind of things?" Kim asked, getting out her books from her locker.

"I could see things that others couldn't." Ron began, his voice sounding as serious as ever, "I could stop bullets, and even fly like Superman, and I also had a…" Ron shook his head, "Never mind."

"Had a what, Ron?" Kim demanded, leaning close to Ron with a very narrow and suspicious eye, "Spill or I'll tell the girls about your peep hole in the locker room."

Ron blushed to a beet red when Kim brought that up, because it was true, he did have his own peep hole that looked into the girls shower. There, he could see all the cheerleaders in their most vulnerable states with all that water, which was why Kim chose to shower at home. She may be honest with Ron, but not that kind of honest with him.

"I…" Ron struggled to try to tell Kim the next part, but he knew he had to or his peephole's future would be very dark indeed, "I had a beautiful girlfriend; she had really dark hair that shined like the tight, black-leather body suit that she wore. She had a body that just screamed… boo-yah…" He said 'boo-yah' in a very soft and smooth kind of tone, yet he quickly looked away, waiting for Kim's laughter. He heard nothing and when he looked back, he saw that Kim wasn't laughing; instead she had a look of intense jealousy on her normally serene face.

"Who is this girl?" Kim asked, trying to keep back the burning jealousy within her, "Do I know her? What class was she in? If you say Bonnie, I swear I'll…"

Ron cut off Kim's interrogation, "I don't know." He said, sounding like a man on trial contending his innocence, but then he shrugged, "I've never seen her before in my life."

Kim wanted to press further, to squeeze out more of the juicy details about this mystery woman, and then it occurred to her that she was being a little silly about the situation. After all, it was just a dream girl; there was no harm in a guy fantasizing. Yet, Kim wondered why she was suddenly jealing so hard over Ron's love life, _fantasy_ love life, at that. As she was about to ponder this, her Kimmunicator beeped.

She reached for it and pressed a button, "What's the sitch, Wade?" She asked.

Wade was quick with his report, "Drakken and Shego are up to no good as usual."

"What did they do this time?" Ron asked, rolling his eyes and positioning himself behind Kim to get a better look at the Kimmunicator screen.

"They stole something from a wealthy Frenchman called the Merovingian." Wade reported, "What it is and how they did it is something that I don't know the details to, but the Merovingian asked for you and Ron by name. He sent a small private plane which should arrive at the Middleton airport at exactly three-fifteen. Good luck on the mission."

"Gotcha, Wade. Kim out." She switched off the Kimmunicator and turned to Ron, "We've got a job to do, Ron."

"Better than writing some lame-o report!" Ron smiled his usual cocky happy manner returning quickly as he brought himself back to standing up. As he did, something occurred to him and his face turned to a very serious tone, "How are we going to get to the airport?" He asked Kim.

"I'll just call in a favor for a ride." Kim answered back.

Ron's head turned slowly as if something deep inside him was aware of something inside the adjacent of lockers. Kim didn't know that Ron was starting to feel something that he didn't know anything about. If he were to call it anything, the best word to describe it was that it was like an intuition that had been intensified.

"No need, Kim." Ron said, his voice sounding very sure of himself, "There's a limo here for us."

"Sure there is." Kim said, dismissing what Ron's statement while the two of them walked towards the front doors. As the two of them passed over the threshold, they saw a small crowd outside gathering around something. From their vantage point of the high concrete steps, they saw a long, black stretch limo with a driver holding up a small white sign with two names written on it:

Kim Possible

&

Ron Stoppable

Kim turned sharply to Ron, who was looking very stunned at his correct guess about the limo, "How did you do that?" She asked like a child asking the magician how he did his tricks. "Your guess is as good as mine." Ron shrugged.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

The limo took Kim and Ron to the Middleton Airport where a small passenger plane was waiting for them. Onboard, they were waited on hand and foot with refreshments and other conveniences as if they were rock stars or royalty. Along with that, the butler of the plane gave them two boxes, telling them that the Merovingian liked his guests to be well-dressed when meeting him. Ron was given a tuxedo containing a long coat that came down to his knees as well as a cane. Kim was given a very sexy, black dress that came down to her ankles and had a slit cut up to her thigh that showed off her leg when she moved along with a pair of black formal gloves that came up past her elbows. The two of them saw how good looking they were and wondered if they had to give them back after they were done, but the butler had told them that the Merovingian would allow them to keep their clothes as a sign of good faith.

The plane had landed at Kennedy Airport in New York City, where Kim and Ron were driven in another limo through the city to a rather medium sized building and were shown to an elevator. It was elegant just like the lobby with its white Italian marble; the elevator had great oriental carpeting on its floor, walls that seemed golden with their reflections, and buttons that seemed to be hand carved for every single floor.

"Pretty ritzy place." Kim complimented as she looked around its elegant features, "Don't you think, Ron?" Not getting an answer, Kim asked again, "Ron?" She looked to see Ron was leaning against the golden wall his eyes glazed over showing that he was very deep into his thoughts.

Inside Ron's mind, the déjà vu was reaching ridiculous proportions as he thought about another voice in the depths of his memories. He heard a sinister voice speaking to him:

_Why, Mister Anderson? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Yes? No? Could it be for love? Illusions, Mister Anderson, vagaries of perception; the temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mister Anderson. You must know it by now. You can't win. It's pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mister Anderson? Why? Why do you persist?_

"Because I choose to…" Ron spoke, coming out of his trance in a similar way that he knew the answer to that boy's question about the truth of the spoon.

"Choose to do what, Ron?" Kim asked, worry filling her innocent, green eyes, "Are you sure you're up to this one? I can fly solo this time if something's bothering you."

"No, I'm fine, KP." Ron said, shaking his head, "Just got a lot on my mind. That's all." He smiled, hoping that this reassurance would set Kim's worries aside.

Kim studied her best friend for a moment. She tried to figure out what was going on in Ron's head; he had been acting very strangely for the past few days, a lot stranger than normal. Of course Ron was always a little off, but it never reached this level of strangeness. She shook it off when the elevator dinged and the doors opened to a hall that was filled with white and green squares and rectangles with a black, shining floor that led up to a wooden podium with a man in a three piece suit behind it. As the two of them approached the podium, the suited man spoke in French to them.

"Could he try that in English?" Ron asked.

"We're here to see the Merovingian." Kim said to the suited man.

"Ah, yes. He's been expecting you." The suited man smiled, "Right this way, Miss Possible, Mister Stoppable."

The two of them followed the suited man through a restaurant filled with men and women dressed in such upscale clothing and eating food that seemed to be better suited as finger foods. Yet, Ron wouldn't exactly know a lot about these cuisines because his diet consisted mostly of Bueno Nacho items. The suited man brought Kim and Ron to a long table at the far end of the dining room where a very sleek suited man sat sipping red wine with a lady in white sitting next to him. The man looked up at the oncoming teens and stood up to greet them.

"The legendary Kim Possible!" He said, his accent very thick with the French dialect, "Oh, such an honor to be in your presence. Miss Possible, you are exactly as I imagined, bravery matched only by your beauty. Thank you for your quick response."

"No big." Kim blushed as she sat down in the empty seat in front of the Merovingian with Ron sitting next to her.

"And you," The Merovingian smiled brightly at Ron, "It has been too long!"

"Huh? Have we met before?" Ron asked as he and Kim blinked in confusion.

"Oh, my apologies." The Merovingian bowed his head and waved it off, "I mistook you for an old acquaintance of mine. Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Merovingian, and this is my wife, Persephone." He presented the woman sitting next to him wearing a white dress accentuating her considerable cleavage.

"It's a pleasure, Miss Possible, Mister Stoppable." Persephone said smiling at Ron, "Are you two lovers or possibly a couple?" She asked, smiling at the two teens, which were starting to blush a very deep scarlet.

"What?" Kim asked, very surprised by what she heard in this woman's assumptions about her and Ron, and quickly moved to dispel her notions, "No, we're just best friends and partners in saving the world!"

Ron nodded feverishly to go along with what Kim was saying.

"For now." Persephone smiled under her breath.

"Please excuse my wife," The Merovingian smiled, "She is quite open with the ways of romance and love… almost to the point of obsession, but that obsession has aided me in my latest experiment."

"Experiment?" Kim asked, anxious to change the subject from the embarrassing topic of her and Ron's relationship, "Does that have anything to do with why you called us?"

"In the long run, yes it does, Miss Possible." The Merovingian replied, his voice sounding very calm and quite intellectual, showing off his level of education, "You see, I am fascinated with the concept of causality, cause and effect, action…reaction. Are you familiar with causality, Miss Possible?"

"Sure." Kim nodded as she smirked at the memories of Ron on the missions, "Ron fires his grappling hook and we see what underwear he has on today. Cause and Effect."

Ron glared at his partner in crime-stopping, "Kim!" He said in a quiet shout.

"You see what underwear he has on today," the Merovingian continued for her, "And you wonder and imagine what is hidden underneath it all; cause and effect….Action…Reaction."

Kim blushed brightly; she'd hoped that she would have eluded that blush-inducing subject, when she was drawn back into it like being stuck in quicksand. The Merovingian continued, "To understand my experiment is beyond your capability at this time, but it has to do with the concept of true love passing on in reincarnation. Whether two people who were madly in love and willing to die for one another will feel the same if given another chance at life. However, whether or not you believe in reincarnation matters little for the key to the full spectrum of my experiment requires something that you both are yet to understand."

In the midst of all of the Merovingian's prattling, Ron spoke about his confusion in scratching his head.

"Umm…you lost me at 'to understand my experiment'." He said.

The Merovingian reached into his pocket and pulled out a small Palm Pilot-like device and handed it across the table to Kim, "Here is the tracking device that will lead you to the ruffians who took my prototype and also an early reward for aiding me in addition to your clothes." He said as he gave a small handclap.

"You don't have to reward us; you've already given a lot with these clothes." Kim said, trying to be modest in waving her hands, hoping that she would stop the Merovingian's generosity.

"Nonsense!" The Merovingian smiled, "I have a gift for the both of you."

The Merovingian gave a small handclap, and seconds later, a waiter came over with a small plate in one hand and laid it down in front of Kim and Ron. They looked at it and saw a delectable slice of chocolate cake.

"Enjoy the desert, Miss Possible." The Merovingian said as he lay back, "As soon as you've finished, Mister Stoppable will receive his gift."

"Hey! I like cake, where is my…" Ron was about to protest Kim getting a slice of cake and not him, but then he narrowed his eyes at the desert. There was something very wrong about it; he couldn't quite place his finger upon it, but he definitely knew that something wasn't right about it. The dark brown surface of it seemed to have a kind of golden shimmer to it; it could have been the light, but it seemed much deeper than something as simple as that. Yet, the fact remained that it didn't seem to belong where it sat.

Kim took her desert fork and was about to make her slice into the cake, when Ron's hand reached over, grabbed the rim of the desert plate and pulled it away from Kim before she could even sink her fork into its delicious goodness.

"Hey, that's mine, Ron!" Kim snapped at her partner, "You'll get yours later!"

Ron held it away from her so that she couldn't get a good grab on the desert plate, neither one of them noticing the Merovingian's look. He looked at the scene with shocked and, at the same time, knowing eyes as if he was expecting all of it to happen the way it was.

Ron set the desert plate far away from Kim's reach, while Rufus snuck out from one of the pockets in Ron's jacket and climbed up upon the table to where Ron set the plate. Rufus rubbed his paws together as he looked at it.

"Ooh, cake!" Rufus squeaked as he reached out, tore away a small piece of the cake and swallowed it whole with the Merovingian watching with great disgust, either at Rufus eating the cake or just at the mere site of Rufus himself. Yet, as Rufus swallowed the chocolate delight, he started to spin around on the table's surface, "Oh….no feel good…"

Setting the scene aside, Kim reactivated herself into her usual mission mode as if it were a set of clothes that she had slipped into, "Well, we've a mission to accomplish" she announced as she stood up from the table and addressed the Merovingian, "We'll have your prototype back in less than two days."

Ron followed suit.

"Very good, Miss Possible." The Merovingian said, his gaze turning stone cold as he looked at Rufus very nervously as if the hairless rodent was a disease, "And Mister Stoppable….do hold onto…that…that…rat…"

As soon as the words left the Merovingian's lips, Rufus did something that was very odd, almost as odd as when Ron looked at the chocolate cake slice and felt that it was out of place. Ron witnessed Rufus dive from the top of the table, into Ron's hands and then down to the floor where he wrapped his front legs around Kim's ankle and started humping against her leg.

"Eww, Rufus!" Kim gasped, kicking and shaking her leg, trying to extract Rufus, who latched tightly onto Kim's leg and continued to hump it as if his animal senses were set aflame by Kim's scent. Kim knew that this would haunt her nightmares for weeks to come.

"Rufus, get offa her!" Ron gasped in response as he tried to grab the mole rat, but Kim's hopping from one foot to the other was making it rather difficult and awkward as the men and women of the restaurant started to gawk at the two of them, while Persephone giggled and the Merovingian narrowed his eyes at Ron.

Ron had his hand around Rufus' body and he started to do what never failed to calm his hairless friend down. Kim knew what this trick was and immediately joined in upon his tactic.

_Rock a bye, Rufus in the tree top,_

_When the wind blows, the cradle will rock_

_When the bow breaks, the cradle will fall_

_And down will come Rufus, cradle and all_

Rufus fell asleep almost instantly, his grip starting to loosen from Kim's ankle and he fell directly into Ron's hands. As he did, Ron tucked Rufus away into one of the large pockets of his tuxedo coat. With Rufus asleep and the situation brought to a close, Kim assessed the damage done to her ankle as well as her notions of decency.

"Oh, no he didn't…" Kim groaned looked at her ankle and starting to blush pink, "I have to wash this off before we go anywhere…"

"There's a restroom by the elevator." Ron said knowingly as if he had been there in that very restaurant before.

"How do you know that?" Kim asked Ron with that same curiosity that she had when she asked Ron how he knew that the limousine had pulled up to the school.

"I don't know." Ron shrugged, "Let's just hurry up and get out of here."

As the two of them were about to leave the dining room and flee the embarrassment that the two of them had endured, Ron suddenly realized something. His senses about the cake, he knew that there was something wrong with it, and Rufus' behavior after eating it was proof that it wasn't just him. He knew that there was something very wrong about the world around him, but he couldn't figure it out. Some would say that he was paranoid, then again Kim said the same thing about him when they returned to Camp Wannaweep and faced Ron's old enemy, Gill. Ron looked back at the Merovingian, narrowing his eyes at him and back at the cake with that little nibble missing, seeing that same golden glow about it.

The Merovingian smiled as he watched them leave, "Ron Stoppable." He said with a cocky pompousness, "I see much potential in you, my boy. So much potential…"

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Around the hills of Middleton, Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable were on their search for the Merovingian's Machine. Thanks to the PDA-like device that was given, the search was a little easier with a small light showing a location past a few three-dimensional hills and mountains displayed on the item's map function. It was quite the hike, even after Kim called in a favor for a ride from an eccentric billionaire, who finally put his Hummer to good use instead of just a trophy car. Of course, he said his thanks to Kim for their help with figuring out which stocks would take off. Kim simply shrugged it off; saying that it was 'No Big', and that the answer was obvious to the most normal of people. Yet, that was Kim's modesty. Though Ron was riding in the back seat of the Hummer bouncing up and down on the bumpy road, he couldn't take his mind off of that freaky desert at the Merovingian's restaurant. It just kept bothering him why that cake slice had that golden shimmer; it made him think of all those UFO sightings where people always say that they saw something, but they weren't sure what it was.

After the ride was over and the light was closer to them on the Merovingian's palm pilot, the two heroes decided to go the rest of the way on foot.

"It says that it should be here." Kim said, holding up the palm pilot to figure out where the location of the machine could be. She held out the palm pilot, looking in all directions as she stood at a set of rock formations. The base of the formation of round rocks and boulders that she was standing on looked almost like a dam holding back a river that didn't exist.

"Maybe that French guy doesn't know what he's…" Ron was about to remark about the situation and try to discredit the man that hired them, but then something came over him. It was a wash of sureness that he couldn't explain; that he suddenly understood something about the world around him. It was much like the awareness of that golden shimmer on that cake again, but this time it was within the rocks themselves.

He looked at the rocks and narrowed his eyes, "…wait…something's here…" He said whisperingly as if his normal voice would have given him away to some kind of invisible enemy.

"What, Ron?" Kim asked, holding the palm pilot at her side and wondering what Ron was going to do next. She watched as he came closer to the rock dam; he held out his hand and shoved it against one of the many round stones in the formation. The stone looked out of place as well. While the other stones had an orange color to it, the one that Ron laid his hand upon looked redder. He shoved his hand against it, and the rock sank in, and yet it didn't disturb the other rocks around it. Instead, the rock formation began to move inward like a pair of swinging doors, and beyond the rocks was a small ramp that went downward in a slow decline.

Kim smirked, "Mister Dumb-luck." she said to Ron

Ron shook his head at Kim, "Not dumb luck, Kim…Dumb skills."

"Uh-huh, uh-huh!" Rufus chirped from Ron's cargo pocket.

The two of them went down the dark, declining ramp until they came into a place that just seethed with villainy in its high vaulted ceilings to accommodate whatever machinery and super computers that the villains would have at their disposal. The two of them snuck in hoping that none of Drakken's henchman or worse…Shego…would discover them. Yet, as the two of them were sneaking around, Ron's senses were becoming stronger and stronger. Just like an infection that was growing worse, so too did those unusual senses grow with each passing hour, and it came to a point where Ron stopped dead in his tracks.

Kim looked behind her and saw the dead seriousness in Ron's face and asked, "Did you hear something?" She asked, narrowing her eyes and looking around.

"Uh…" Ron stammered quietly, "yeah, I heard something, yes…" He said, rubbing his suddenly sore chin.

That was when they heard a very familiar, arrogant, and conceited voice call out to them, "Kim Possible and Sidekick." The voice of Drakken laughed as the lights suddenly came from everywhere and focused upon him as if he was a rock star of world domination, "Why am I not surprised by your arrival here?"

Kim and Ron finally saw the main room of the lair in its entirety. First of all, the spotlights upon Drakken, who stood on top of a large machine that was very laser cannon-like, but instead of an emitter at the end of it, there was a human sized tube there. All around the machine's base were other lights that illuminated the entire lair as well Shego's usual standing place, being Drakken's lackey.

"Drakken," Kim demanded from her arch foe, "What's your angle on taking over the world this time?"

"That's for me to know, Kim Possible!" Drakken cackled, "And you…not to…but enough chit-chat! Shego! Kill them both!"

"Works for me!" Shego smiled as her hands began to glow like they always did when she faced Kim Possible and her buffoon of a sidekick. "And this time it'll be different!"

"How's it going to be different, Shego?" Ron demanded with a new sense of bravery that came out of nowhere.

"Like this!" Shego said as she lunged forward with her glowing claws, yet instead of Ron ducking them, Shego had hit her mark. Her glowing claws had dug into Ron's black mission clothes and right down into his soft, pink flesh. They burned through his chest and all the way down to the very ribs that surrounded his heart and lungs; yet, even those weren't enough to stop Shego's claws. They went through them and tore into the muscle of the heart and the alveoli of the lungs all before Shego had pulled back, letting Ron fall backward with blood spilling from the deep wound in his chest. He fell backwards onto the concrete floor and heard one of the last things he would hear ever…

"RON!" Kim screamed, hoping that what she was seeing was simply an illusion and that it wasn't actually happening. Unfortunately, it was real. Kim saw the whole thing happen to her best friend and partner as he was slaughtered by that bitch, Shego. She felt her heart break as she watched her best friend die only a few feet away from her. She watched the blood spurt out of Ron's chest and mouth as he spat his dying words to Kim.

"Kim," Ron wheezed, "Look out." And with that last breath, Ron Stoppable died there on the concrete floor of Dr. Drakken's lair.

Drakken cackled, "Finally! The buffoon is dead! Shego! Kill Kim Possible!"

"With Pleasure!" Shego answered as she dashed after Kim.

To Kim, she fought Shego harder than ever before, because the most horrible and unthinkable thing had happened to her: she had lost her best friend. The very person who had been by her side through everything that they had been up against, but she tried to keep her wits about her while promising a slow, painful death to Shego for what she did.

Over where Ron Stoppable lay, something was beginning to take place, something wonderful and frightening at the same time. The wound in Ron's chest began to heal and close in upon itself, drawing back all the torn flesh, bone, and organs together as if his body had been the target of a regeneration spell like in the RPGs he used to play with his friend, Felix. Lying there, Ron Stoppable had opened his eyes and looked up to the ceiling of the lair, hearing the fight going on between Shego and Kim. He sat back up, looked at himself and then at his environment and knew immediately that it was different for the world around him was no longer was filled with colors and textures, light and shadow. Instead, he saw a world filled with green code flowing like water across different surfaces, swirling round and round the floor of the lair, all around the surfaces of the machine that Drakken had stolen, and even around the surfaces of the people as they moved around and interacted with one another. In Ron's mind, he wondered what was going on and why this was happening to him. The Déjà vu was no longer relevant because it was no longer that. He didn't have a feeling; he had a direct knowing of what the world was around him.

"There is no spoon." Ron whispered to himself as he stood back up on his feet.

While on the other side of the lair, Drakken was savoring his moment of triumph in seeing Kim Possible's spirit crushed after her friend was killed, and by his best lackey, to boot. Yet, to Drakken, he knew that this was too good to be true, so he looked over to where the buffoon lay dead and, to a dumbfounding surprise, he saw that he was not only alive, but walking around as if Shego's attack never happened.

"It's impossible!" Drakken screamed.

"What?" Shego asked.

"The buffoon's alive!" Drakken answered back.

"You sure?" Shego asked as she kicked down Kim Possible.

"See for yourself!" Drakken pointed down from the top of his machine.

Shego was as dumbfounded and flabbergasted as Drakken by what she was witnessing. Even more so than Drakken since it had been her plasma-powered claw that had ripped through his clothes, flesh, blood, bones, and organs. She kept thinking how it could have happened, but it didn't matter to her, as her fighting instincts took over and she made another attack at Ron. She dashed across the lair, her hands aglow with the green fire she always possessed, knowing that she would get it right that time. As she dashed towards him, Ron had his own set of cascading revelations when he saw the world for what it was, and with Shego closing on him, he looked to her and uttered one thing.

"No." He said, raising his hand up against Shego as she dove right for him, and as he did, he saw the change in the 'code' around him; it was changing to what he wanted it to be. To him, the whole odd experience was just like lucid dreaming, where the dreamer could take control and change the dream to suit him. As the code changed, Shego froze in mid-air; she looked all around and saw that she back down or even move hardly at all.

"But there was just one!" Shego screamed, her eyes widening at the boy who was changing the world around him to his whim, "How can you be the One? There shouldn't even be a One yet!"

With what was going on, Kim Possible, who was watching from across the lair, was awed by what she was seeing. Her mind couldn't comprehend what was going on around her; it seemed impossible, despite the family motto, but what she was seeing was truly impossible. It seemed that Ron could bend, break, and suspend all natural laws of physics, but how and why?

"Ron?" Kim asked from her corner of the lair.

"Don't worry, KP." Ron reassured her as he bent the laws of reality all around him, "This time, I'll save you."

Shego felt the grip of whatever held her vanish for a fraction of a second, which was enough time to make haste in their escape. She took her flame-wreathed hands and made a hole in the wall of the lair while Ron was distracted by Kim. It was just large enough for them to make their escape with the machine that they stole from the Merovingian as well, but there was little time to screw around with it.

"Drakken!" Shego called, "Let's go!"

As Drakken came down from the Merovingian's machine, Kim was still concerned for her friend.

"R…Ron?" She asked.

Yet, Ron Stoppable's eyes rolled in the back of his head before collapsing to the concrete floor of the lair. He looked as though he had fainted or perhaps was going into a seizure.

"What will you do, Kim Possible?" Drakken challenged as he and Shego were making quick with their own escape, "Chase the villain, or save the boy! We are all here to do what we are all here to do. Choose what you will do now."

Kim chose Ron. She dashed to his side, placing his head in her lap while making a small declaration of her own against Drakken, "You can't run forever and you know you can't hide, Drakken!" She hissed.

"Yeah, yeah…I can try, can't I?" Drakken asked. He laughed manically as he, Shego, and the machine were picked up by a helicopter on the outside and being to the temporary safety of their escape.

Kim Possible watched the two of them escape, and thought to herself that Drakken and Shego may have won this battle, but the war was far from over in her book. Yet, there were more important matters at hand, such as the ailing Ron, who was beginning to stir in her lap.

Kim looked down and asked the awakening Ron, "Ron, are you ok?"

Ron uttered with a very low breath, "Saved again, huh?" He smiled, "One of these days, I won't be dead weight."

Just hearing his voice was enough for Kim as she leaned in and hugged her best friend tightly around his neck. She even began to shed tears, feeling them run down her face and across Ron's neck. She felt such great relief in seeing him alive when she was so sure that he had been dead a few minutes ago, but he really _was_ alive.

"Uh…did I miss something?" Ron asked as if he had truly been asleep the whole time.

To be continued…

After several months of preparation the Kimmatrix Trilogy has returned! I hope you enjoy our hard work at reformatting and adding new scenes. Some scenes have been added completely new stuff, some have been modified, and some are just scenes I wanted to add to begin with, but never did. The whole series has been redone and I'll be posting two chapters a week, maybe three depending on response. Expect them (site willing) on Mondays and Fridays. Don't forget to leave reviews and I hope you like the modifications!


	2. Resurrections Chapter 2

**The Kimmatrix: Matrix Resurrections**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and Turles**

**Chapter 02: Land of the Awake**

"_I keep having these weird thoughts lately…like…is any of this for real…or not?"_

- Sora (Kingdom Hearts)

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

A black Sedan roared through the streets of Middleton Colorado. It kept its speed to within the minimal of the posted speed limit signs. It came into the residential areas and slowed down as it pulled into the driveway of a small two-story home. Both the driver and passenger side doors swung open at the exact same time as if they were synchronized and out stepped three men. All three of these men had the same hairstyle parted on their right and clothing: black suit and tie, dark, square rimless sunglasses, and ear pieces in their right ears. The three of them looked at each other as if they were communicating silently amongst each other saying that it was definitely the right house. With that, the three of them walked up the concrete steps to the house with their dress shoes clicking against the hard surface of the driveway. The leader of this trio came up to the door and knocked.

The door was opened by a tall, skinny woman roughly in her thirties or forties with thin, red rimmed glasses, short, blonde hair and a set of light brown eyes that looked at the three men like a puppy glancing at people walking by from inside a pet shop.

"Hello?" She asked, "Can I help you gentlemen?"

"Mrs. Stoppable?" The leading man asked with an emotionless automatic quality like a machine, "I am Agent Thompson, and these are my associates, Agent Wilson and Agent Jackson. Is this the residence of Ronald Stoppable?"

"Yes," Mrs. Stoppable answered very nervous about what the prospects of this situation would bring about, "but he's gone to a friend's house right now. Is something the matter?"

"No." The Agent answered coldly, "We just have a few questions for him. We will return on a later date. Thank you very much for your cooperation Mrs. Stoppable and Happy Hanukkah."

The agents turned away from the door and headed back to the sedan talking amongst their selves.

"Confirmed." Agent Jackson stated

"Target moving south, bound for residence of the Possible Family." Agent Wilson spoke emotionlessly.

"Proceed with caution," Agent Thompson warned, "Target should be considered highly dangerous."

The three agents returned to their black sedan and all got back inside with the precision of synchronized swimmers, the doors closing at the same time, the engine starting up, and the sedan backing out and driving away, leaving behind an air of uncertainty as to what was going to be done.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Meanwhile, across town at the home of the Possible family, Kim Possible threw herself back on her big comfortable bed. She was dressed in her purple tank top with the green heart in the middle and baggy, flannel pants that were loose, but not so much that they fell off her hips. She thought about the coming events; it was a week before Christmas and Ron's birthday, and Kim had yet to even start her own Christmas shopping or Hanukkah shopping for Ron.

"Too bad that Ron's parents don't believe in Christmas." Kim smiled, "He'd rack up on gifts with his birthday being on the same day."

With Ron on her mind, Kim couldn't help thinking back to the events the last mission and Ron's seemingly reality-bending abilities, how Ron was able to freeze Shego in mid-air like that with his hand; it was as if he was a magician in disguise of a goof. Kim was still having trouble believing it and often tried to rationalize the events that played back in her mind.

"I had to be hallucinating." She shook her head and sat up, "How could Ron do something like that? How could ANYONE do something like that? It just doesn't make sense! It was probably just some trick of Drakken's…"

"Hey, KP!" Ron's voice called from the other side of her door, "Are you decent?"

"Yes, come on in, Ron." Kim called out to her friend.

Kim turned to find her best friend had a small, oblong package under his arm. He smiled at Kim as he said, "I know it's early, but I thought I'd go ahead and give you your Christmas present."

"Christmas present?" Kim asked as Ron handed her the package confused about his reasoning, "But you're Jewish, Ron. I thought you didn't believe in Christmas."

"I don't." Ron shrugged with a shy smile, "But you do, and that's good enough for me."

Kim smiled as she stood up and gave her best friend a hug, "That's so sweet, Ron! Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet, KP." Ron said, still smiling away, "Open it first. I thought you might need it since it's starting to get cold around here."

Kim nodded before gathering her gift. She held it in her lap, looking at the red and green printed paper that hugged the box containing her present. She started to pull at the ends, hoping to savor the experience of anticipation, but then lost all patience and simply tore at the wrapping like a cat scratching its claws on a post. She set the paper aside to reveal a white, oblong box, the kind that department stores use when people buy clothes, yet there was no label on it of who the store was. It wasn't JC Penny's, Dillard's, Old Navy, or even Club Banana. Kim lifted the top end of the box and opened the flaps of the tissue paper to find her present inside.

"Oh Ron!" Kim exclaimed, "I love it! Thank you!" She pulled a leather trench coat from the box; it was a deep red color with a very smooth, yet leathery texture. As she held it in her hands, she felt its heaviness, knowing that the coat would keep her warm on cold nights in Middleton. She set the coat back into the box, set the box on her bed, and reached up to hug Ron. As she did, she wished that she would have gotten him a good Hanukkah present. In her mind, she thought back to when she got a job at Bueno Nacho with Ron because she wanted to buy this popular green leather jacket from Club Banana, yet she couldn't quite cut the mustard, so Ron bought the jacket for her. It occurred to Kim that Ron had done so much for her. She would have continued on this train of thought but the Kimmunicator beeped.

Kim reached for the device and pressed the on button, "What's the sitch, Wade?" She asked of her information gatherer.

"Got a lead on Drakken" Wade responded, "He's set up in Upperton. I'll send you directions."

"Spankin'." Kim smiled, "We're on top of it, Wade." She switched off her Kimmunicator, and then pulled her new trench coat out of the box as she went behind her changing wall to get into her mission clothes. She slipped into that black top, khaki cargos, black gloves and her new, crimson-red, leather trench coat and came out from behind her changing wall to approach Ron.

"Ready to go, Ron?" She asked.

"Ready, willing and able." Ron winked with a 'thumbs up'.

Rufus popped up from Ron's pocket, mimicking his master's actions and squeaked,

"Ready, willing, able!"

The two ran down the stairs, and through the living room where they passed by the kitchen occupied by Mrs. Dr. Possible. Kim dashed by her mom, yelling out one word, something that her mother would understand immediately:

"Mission." She said as the two of them were already out of the door.

"Good luck and be careful!" Mrs. Possible yelled behind them as the door clicked shut and she went back to washing her dishes. The time that went by as she cleaned seemed to fly by so fast that it seemed only an instant later that there was a knock at the door. She washed off her hands, dried them, and went to the front door.

She opened the door, thinking that it must have been her daughter, "Did you for get something or…oh my…" The person standing at the door wasn't Kim at all. Mrs. Possible was met with the stern, neutral, and emotionless face of an Agent who looked down at her from behind his square rimless sunglasses.

"Greetings, Representative Possible." Agent Thompson said flatly, "Is your daughter, Kimberly, or her friend, Ronald, present?"

"W…what do you want with them?" Mrs. Possible asked; the fear evident on her face with her wide eyes and shaking voice as she stared at the towering agent.

"Your daughter?" The agent asked, "Nothing at all, only information on the whereabouts of Mister Stoppable. We require Mister Stoppable for questioning. Any information on his location would be greatly appreciated."

Mrs. Possible started to regain her courage in the idea that her child could be harmed by these men, "I don't know why you're back, and I really don't care." She snarled at the agent, "If you want to get either of those kids, then you won't get any help from me! Ron's going to be freed in a week and Kim will follow in three months. What threat could they be to you?"

"Being a citizen of Zion, we have no real authority over you, Mrs. Possible." The agent stated still as emotionless as ever, "Other than your access to the Matrix, but your help is not mandatory. Your resistance only postpones the inevitable; we will find Mister Stoppable in a matter of time, with or without your help." The Agent turned and left Mrs. Possible without giving a second look at her.

"Why do you want him?" Mrs. Possible questioned with great worry for both her daughter's and Ron's safety, "He's just a boy."

"That…" The Agent said without even turning his back to face her, "…is none of your concern, but your daughter will remain unharmed, the truce will be kept." With that, the Agent rejoined the others in the black sedan that was parked in their driveway. As soon as he got in, the car drove away and, much it did at like the Stoppable home, left behind an air of confusion about what was going on. Though Mrs. Possible was not a woman to be underestimated, she knew she would need help as she watched the car drive away. She reached into her lab coat pocket and pulled out a cell phone and quickly punched in a few numbers.

"Sparks." She spoke into the phone, "This is Kazaa. I need to get a message to Morpheus on the _Neb II_, A.S.A.P."

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

On the outskirts of Upperton was Drakken's new lair. Even though they had gotten away with the Merovingian's machine and set up a new location, one event still bothered them. Drakken paced back and forth around his new lair, his mind wracked with all kinds of questions on top of questions on top of still more questions like some inquirous house of cards.

"It's too soon!" Drakken shouted, his voice echoing through the lair as he paced back and forth, running his black gloved fingers over his widowed peaked hair. "The sixth One came sixteen years ago! There is only one every hundred years! The buffoon, Shawn, cannot be the One; it just doesn't make any sense!"

"Um…" Shego interrupted her moron of a boss, "Doc, his name is Ron." She said as she continued to study the hardware of their newly acquired piece of machinery.

"Ron…Shawn, what does it matter!" Drakken bellowed, "He shouldn't be able to do that!"

"Doctor D." Shego said, not looking up from the manual that she was reading, "You've gotta get a grip. Breathe, ok? It's probably just a glitch or something. That does happen sometimes. Like that runner during the Olympics a few Reloads ago? I think it was the third one where he touched the source by mistake and blew out the muscles in his legs. Trust me; I saw the whole thing from a front row seat. It happens, so don't worry about it."

"Even if this kid is the next One," Drakken postulated, feeling a little better about the situation, "He's still a simpleton. He can't possibly be as much trouble as that Neon."

"Neo, Doctor D." Shego corrected.

"Whatever." Drakken snarled, "How's the study on our new toy coming, Shego?"

"The study has just concluded." A voice called out from above. As the voice came through, two figures broke through the glass, sending its shards down to the floor like a small hailstorm. Kim landed on her feet and so did Ron, even though he slipped two seconds later and fell face first. He quickly got back to his feet, ready to fight.

"Well, Kim Possible. Nice to see you again so soon!" Drakken laughed and then turned to her partner, "Been seeing any green lately, buffoon sidekick?" He asked of Ron.

"I…don't know what you're talking about." Ron said quickly, though he knew exactly what Drakken was talking about because he still saw 'it': the green code that flowed over everything in sight. Ron's vision of the "coded world" had been going in and out since the day that Shego killed him. In every moment of danger, it came back; the sight of that green code flowing all over every surface, texture, and face. It became brighter on the surface highlights and darker in the shadows. He tried to set these things aside and concentrate on Drakken, just a mixture of code himself. "But I know that I'll be seeing you behind bars soon!"

"You'll be seeing me behind bars soon?" Drakken asked, mocking Ron's voice, "You've been hanging around your little girlfriend too long, Tom, sounding all superhero dramatic, well you think you're all that, but you're not!"

"That's Ron, Doctor D." Shego corrected as she stepped up to his side with her hands glowing in their green flames.

"Whatever, Shego. Just kill them both!" Drakken ordered while he went back to work with the Merovingian's machine. This time, he wasn't working on it to start it up like all the other times when Kim had attacked him, instead he was standing by, watching as his henchmen loaded the machine into a loading truck to be taken to a new lair of his choosing.

While Drakken did that, Shego jumped at Kim, ready to slice and dice the teen hero. Shego had to admit to herself that, even though she had worked so hard to make this stupid scheme of her moronic boss's work, the perk of the occupation was beating up Kim. Though this time when she was facing Kim, she kept one eye on Ron. She was going to make sure that he didn't use those same tricks that he did last time. After a few punches and kicks, Ron hadn't done anything, so Shego felt that her suspicion was right. Maybe it was just a glitch that Ron took advantage of, nothing more, and she continued to fight Kim.

Ron, on the other hand, was more concerned about something else. As the fight between Kim and Shego wore on, he felt something. It was like a tickle at the base of his skull, kind of like that feeling where the hairs on the back of your neck stand up on end. He looked around through all the green code, the machine, the computers, the walls, even Drakken, Shego, and Kim. The tickle grew stronger and stronger as he looked towards the doors and felt the tingle grow and keep growing until it was downright painful. It seemed to tell him that something wasn't right; that something was coming.

"Watch it, KP!" Ron called out to his partner, hoping that his warning would be heeded. Yet, it seemed like he was too late as the front doors of the lair were kicked open, but not by a mere human foot. The way the doors flew off their hinges, it seemed as if someone was there with an old fashioned battering ram and opened the doors indefinitely.

Ron looked and there he saw three Agents walking in, but even they didn't seem quite right. He looked at them and his eyes widened at what he saw. There, amongst the flow of the code where the Agents stood, Ron only saw a green outline where the code flowed all around them like rain dripping off a slick surface. Within the Agents' code outline, Ron saw three very different people; there was a chubby man in a tee shirt and boxers, a little girl in a jogging suit, and a woman in a business suit. All three of them seemed to be trapped inside those green outlines that made up the agents. As Ron studied them, the three Agents drew their guns and began to fire at Drakken, Shego, and himself, yet not one was targeting Kim.

As the bullets flew, Ron felt himself move, or at least that's what it seemed like. The bullets that flew out of the gun seemed to slow down, as if the natural flow of time in the world was being slowed down all around Ron Stoppable. With that, Ron stepped to one side and the bullets flew past him and embedded itself in the far wall of Drakken's lair. Once the bullets were out of his way, time began to speed back up to normal and Ron heard Kim calling out to him.

"Ron, we've gotta get out of here!" She cried, grabbing his wrist and not noticing his lack of attention, then again, Ron didn't feel as though he was in any real danger from Drakken, Shego, or these Agents.

As Ron and Kim escaped the scene, the Agents spoke amongst themselves.

"Delete the two Exiles and the anomaly." Agent Thompson stated coldly, "The girl is not to be harmed in any way."

"The Anomaly is priority one." Agent Wilson restated Thompson's orders, "The Exile Programs are the secondary objective."

"Moving in." Agent Jackson said as the three of them began to chase after Kim and Ron.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Kim and Ron dashed out of Drakken's new lair and into the streets of Upperton. The city was huge compared to Middleton, enormous buildings used for business along with different, big property houses filled the city. The lair that Drakken had used was a warehouse somewhere in the downtown area of Upperton, the place for the more industrial of activities. It was through the alleyways of the different warehouses that Kim and Ron were running, trying to desperately put distance between themselves and the Agents.

"Ok, those guys are new." Kim commented as she and Ron ran with the trio of Agents on their tails.

"I've seen them before, KP." Ron said, almost out of breath as he glanced back at the three men with their shadows projecting against the wall, telling the duo that they were gaining on them. "I know I have…"

"Think later, run now." Kim spoke quickly as the two of them came to a fork in the alleyways between the warehouses. The two of them looked back seeing the Agents' shadows growing smaller, "You go one way, and I'll go the other." Kim said to Ron, "Maybe we can split them up."

"Right, Kim." Ron nodded.

"Be careful." The two of them said together.

"Jinx." Kim smiled, "You owe me a soda."

"Doh!" Ron grunted as the two of them split paths. Ron ran away as far and as fast as he could with Kim doing the same thing, the idea of getting as far apart as possible lodged in both of their heads. To Ron, it didn't quite feel as natural as it had been in the old days, but he remembered that things had changed in the past few days. He certainly knew that the day he "died" at the hands of Shego.

Back at that T-shaped fork, Kim had only run a few yards before getting into her Kung-Fu stance, ready and waiting for the Agents to show up. She watched their shadows on the wall grow smaller until they were at the fork, and, to her surprise, the Agents looked at her and then looked in the direction that Ron had taken.

"Subject is moving north by northwest." One of the Agents said to the others, "We are to proceed with great caution."

"Confirmed." Another Agent said, "Moving in."

With that, the Agents were on the move down the path that Ron had taken, leaving Kim behind in her Kung Fu stance and wondering what was going through their minds. She knew that she posed a greater threat to them than Ron.

"Why are they after Ron?" Kim asked as she sprinted through the alleyway and down the path that Ron and the Agents had taken.

Meanwhile, a few dozen or so yards away, Ron hit a dead end. In his paranoia of seeing if those Agents were still on his trail, he didn't see where he was going and ended up sitting at the dead end covered in garbage with a small cardboard box on his head. He lifted the edge of it to see three pairs of legs standing in front of him. Just like a child hiding from monsters in the closet or under the bed, Ron dropped the box back over his head.

"It is him." Ron had heard one of the Agents say.

"The Anomaly." another Agent said, "Do we proceed?"

"Yes."

"He is still…"

"Only human." A third Agent had finished the sentence.

Ron cowered underneath that cardboard box on his head, hoping and praying to God that some kind of miracle would happen to save him from this. He thought about the fact that he would die again and that was when he thought about the things that he'd leave behind in the mortal world. There was his family, the cheer squad, how would they get along without him as the Middleton Mad Dog? There was Bueno Nacho; the place would feel empty without him there eating some of their best stuff. He thought about the most important thing: Kim. How would she get along in the world without him?

As the questions and thoughts of a world without Ron Stoppable ran though his head, he heard the clicking of their guns; they had cocked them and were ready to send the young man to the next life. He then heard the emotionless voice of the Agent.

"You are not meant to exist, Mister Stoppable."

Yet, Ron didn't want to die. He wanted to live; if only for Bueno Nacho, he wanted to live. The fear of dying gripped him like the hand of some great monster and all he could hear under that cardboard box was the beating of his heart roaring into his ears, blocking out all other sounds and every inch of his skin felt so sticky and sweaty from all the running and the incredible fear of what was going to happen next. He closed his eyes and wished for something to happen…anything.

His wish was granted. There was a blinding flash in Ron's vision like that of a camera. He opened his eyes and rubbed them, hoping to take out the after images of what had transpired. All around him, he saw the code again, that green code that flowed across every surface around him, down his shirt, around his wrists, and all over the inside of the box. The highlights were when the letters and numbers of the code were the brightest and the darkest when they had gone into the shadows. Beyond the walls of the box, Ron saw the outlines of the Agents again and the people that were trapped inside them. He got to his feet, took the box off of his head, and looked at the Agents who were standing only a few feet away from him with their weapons leveled point blank at him. As he looked at the world in the green code, his understanding of the world around him became even clearer. He heard the guns fire and raised his hand against the oncoming bullets, watching the code shift as the bullets began to slow down in mid air, coming to a full stop just a few inches shy of hitting their target. With the bullets just floating there, Ron reached out and picked up one of the bullets as if it were some kind of trinket off of a gift shop shelf. He looked at it and then dropped it. The other bullets followed like marbles out of a kid's hand. Then Ron looked to the Agents, who allowed their outstretched arms to come down to their sides. Needless to say, the three of them were quite surprised, but not as much as what happened next.

Ron stretched out his hand, much like in that movie he saw…The Empire Strikes Back, where Luke Skywalker was hanging from the ceiling with his feet encased in the ice. He was reaching out for his Lightsaber and commanding the Force to bring his weapon back to him to free him from his predicament. Ron did the same thing: he commanded in his mind that the guns come to him and they did; the guns flew out of the Agents hands and floated for a few seconds in front of Ron's face before disassembling themselves, their parts coming undone faster than anyone had seen before, until there was nothing left of the guns except pieces and parts on the dirty, trash-strewn ground.

"His powers have awakened." Agent Thompson said flatly as if he wasn't at all surprised by what had just happened in the last minute or so.

"This is not good." Agent Wilson added, sounding as flat as Thompson.

"We should fall back." Agent Jackson advised, "We can not risk or allow another Smith Syndrome."

Before any of the Agents made their escape, two shots were fired and two of the Agents went down. Yet as they fell, they began to change and Ron saw the code around the trapped people vanish as they hit the floor. The first Agent had changed into that woman in a business suit and the second changed into that man in his underclothes. The only one left was the Agent Thompson who turned around to see where the shots came from.

The Agent then hissed in recognition at the man behind him, "Morpheus!"

"I've gotten better over the years, Agent." Morpheus stated, "I can take on one of you now."

"One maybe." Thompson said, still sounding flat even when he knew that there was an upper hand to be gained in the fight, "But two?"

As the threats were exchanged between Morpheus and Agent Thompson, Kim Possible had reunited with Ron and observed the situation. She had been there ever since the first two Agents had gone down at the hands of Morpheus and his team. Yet, something began to change about the situation the moment that the agent had asked the very ominous question of, 'But two?'

Kim gasped as she jerked away from Ron.

"KP?" Ron asked as he cradled his friend in his arms, "What's wrong?"

Ron watched in shocked horror as Kim began to transform. Her once beautiful, gem-like, green eyes widened and began to darken. Not just one part of her eye but all of it, the pupil, iris, and cornea all began to turn black and develop sheen to it like the surface of glass.

To Ron's eyes, he saw the horror of what was going on in its green, coded form. He saw Kim's body being invaded by an alien code that began to overtake her like a great infection. With each passing second, he watched the code come over Kim's body and begin to make that shell just like the other Agents had.

"Kim!" He cried, "No!" As he cradled his friend in his arms, something overtook him. Just like that invading code, he felt himself reach out and press his hand upon Kim's chest. His eyes watched as a new code came down through his arm, into his hand, and into Kim's body. The code coming from Ron seemed to counteract the invading code. It was like a digital version of venom vs. anti-venom. Until the virus code was completely gone and all that was left was Kim.

Thompson looked over toward Ron and Kim, "It appears we have missed our window of opportunity. We will meet again, Mister Stoppable."

The Agent turned and backed away from the duo. With cautious optimism replacing the terror that had been only seconds ago, Morpheus decided to check on the ones that the Agent was after in the first place. It still confused him that the Agents would be after kids. At least he thought that until he approached Ron and Kim.

Morpheus approached the two of them, "Are you two all…" He was going to ask about their condition when Ron looked up at him, giving the man a good look at his face. Morpheus froze. Never in a hundred years would he have suspected that something like what he was seeing would happen. He jerked off his armless sunglasses to make sure that he wasn't seeing things or that it wasn't just another visual glitch in the Matrix itself. Even then, he blinked twice at the young boy, who was more concerned about the girl in his arms at that moment. Yet, Morpheus had thousands of questions to ask but only one word escaped his open lips:

"Neo?" He asked like a child recognizing a dead relative in the face of another person.

Ron looked back up at Morpheus, "What's a Neo?" He asked, "It does sound familiar though…Do I know you? You look familiar too." Ron said, all that feeling, all the confliction inside him that at first he didn't even know this man dressed in that alligator skin coat, but at the same time, for some unknown and mysterious reason, he felt a sense of safety around him. The same kind that a person has when they're at home after being away for so very, very long.

"My name is Morpheus." Morpheus introduced himself to Ron, "Perhaps we should go somewhere so we can talk. I think I understand now why those men were after you."

"They weren't men." Ron shook his head, "They were…different. I can't really explain how I know that, but I just do…by the way, my name's Ron and this is Kim."

"Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable?" Morpheus asked, "I've heard of you both. Please, come along before they return. We can talk shortly."

Ron looked up at Morpheus and then back down at Kim, who had fallen soundly asleep in his arms. The vision of the code was lost again, all he could see was the world as it always had been: colorful, detailed, the sun shining, clouds passing overhead, but he knew all too well that nothing was what it seemed to be anymore. Looking back at Morpheus, Ron knew that things were going to change even more, but he had to know more about this truth that had been plaguing him like an itch that refused to go away.

He picked Kim up in his arms and followed behind Morpheus. As he did he whispered to Kim:

"Don't worry, KP." He whispered, "I know that things will be alright even though it may not seem like it."

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Ron followed Morpheus through the alleyways and between the warehouses to the street where there sat a jet black Dodge Charger with its doors open as if they were waiting for them. Morpheus climbed into the driver's side while Ron climbed into the back seat with Kim in his arms. He was careful not to hit Kim's head on anything as the two of them slid into the back seat. Ron sat on the far side of the back seat, allowing Kim's body to spread out on the seat with her head in his lap. The Charger began to move down the street, and, for some reason, Ron felt tired as well, he couldn't explain it but he fell asleep with his head against the window of the SUV while Morpheus made a phone call.

"I see what they're afraid of." Morpheus said as he took a look at the two teens sleeping soundly in the back seat.

"Well, out with it Morpheus." Niobe said on the other end of the line, "Why are they so shaken up?"

"I found him, Niobe." Morpheus stated proudly, like an archeologist finding that proverbial missing link in the sands of his dig site.

"Found who?" Niobe asked, very annoyed with Morpheus' cryptic messages.

"You would never believe me if I told you over the phone." Morpheus smiled to himself like a kid trying to hide a really good secret from his parents, "You will see when I arrive at the post. By the way, you and Ghost stand by with a set up ready for two removals. Both are around sixteen so we shouldn't run into any sort of problems in getting them out. Neither appears to be safe inside the Matrix any longer."

The drive that Morpheus took must have been at least an hour, but then again Morpheus was more concerned with being hunted by the Agents than with what time he was making. As for the sleeping teens in the back seat, he couldn't help smiling just like a kid on Christmas waiting to see what surprises were downstairs under the tree. He continued to drive until he came to the town of Lowerton. There was a lot of cheap housing in Lowerton as compared to Middleton and Upperton. He stopped at a very old apartment building that appeared to have been left vacant for some time. He parked the black Charger as the skies began to darken and pour down rain, came around to the passenger side door where Ron was sleeping and opened the door.

"Wake up, you two." He said softly to Ron and Kim, "We're here."

"What…happened?" Kim asked as she began to come back to full consciousness, "What happened to those men?" She sat back up as Ron got out of the car.

"It's hard to explain right now, Miss Possible." Morpheus said, leaning into the doorway of the car, "But if you come with me, I'll attempt to explain things more clearly." He said as he held his hand out to the young woman.

Kim felt disoriented and confused by what was happening all around her. It just seemed like any normal mission at the start of it: retrieve a machine for that wealthy Frenchman called the Merovingian. Then all the strangeness started to happen, she felt more freaked out than on that accidental trip to Camp Wannaweep with that revenge crazy, childhood friend of Ron's/mutant named Gill. Yet, all that happened to her that day paled in comparison to her encounter with those Agents. Against the man who held his hand out to her, the suspicion grew until she decided to go with her instincts and not trust him.

"I don't even know who you are." She said, protesting the entire situation at hand, "And you expect me to come with you? Get real!"

Ron butted in, "His name is Morpheus." He said seriously, "You can trust him, KP…believe me."

Kim looked at Ron and saw a whole new level of seriousness in him that she had been seeing a lot of ever since this mission to retrieve the Merovingian's machine began. Then the question came up in her mind of what was going on in the world that all this should be happening to her and Ron. Looking at Ron and then at Morpheus, Kim knew that she had to know the answers. It was just like in that Animalogy Personality Test she had taken a while back. After all the questions were answered, the test would equate a person's personality to an archetype of an animal and a color. Ron was the Pink Sloth and Kim was the Blue Fox. It was the trait of the Blue Fox to find out the answers no matter what kind of price it may have; it was the question that drove her. She got out of the car and followed Ron and Morpheus into the old apartment building.

The place felt like it needed to be torn down as old and used up as it was. The air of the building reeked of old carpet and the smell of mildew was everywhere; everything sounded stagnant and the floorboards squeaked with every step that they took. The paint on the walls and doors was starting to chip away to its old warped self underneath the veneer. Through the old dusty windows, Kim and Ron could see the lightning beginning to flash outside as if the lightning was signaling a new omen to come over the horizon.

At last, the three of them came to a small room on the fourth floor, the room seemed as large as a classroom, with a large red leather chair, a red leather love seat near the fire place, and a small wooden table holding two glasses of water.

Morpheus turned to look at Ron, "I have found you at last" Morpheus said as he extended his hand out to Ron, asking for a friendly handshake from him, "I am pleased to meet you once again, Neo."

"Um…" Ron uttered, still feeling confused by the situation, "My name is Ron, Morpheus, but I'm honored to meet you anyway."

"Once again, my friend, the honor is mine." Morpheus replied "Please have a seat." He requested as he sat down in the large red leather chair.

Seeing as how one chair was taken, Kim and Ron sat down in the love seat, feeling comfortable and yet uncomfortable at the same time since the curves and shape of the seat seemed to make them want to hug each other in order to gain more comfort. But the two of them simply sat up, waiting for the explanation promised by Morpheus.

"I know that I've heard all of this before…" Ron said in that same strange, serious tone, "I don't know how but I know that I've done all this before."

"Ok, Ron." Kim said, trying to gain a grasp on what was going on, "You're freaking me out here."

"The answers will come shortly." Morpheus explained, "I do not fully understand why you are here, Ronald, but I do recognize that both you and Miss Possible are in danger, and I would like to help you both if you'll let me."

"How can you help us?" Kim asked intently as she leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, waiting for the answer impatiently.

"Have you ever had a dream, Kim, that you were so sure was real?" Morpheus asked in a very philosophical voice, "What if you were unable to wake from that dream?"

"How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?" Ron finished Morpheus' sentence, his eyes narrowed in that same seriousness that seemed so… so… not Ron. "Man, what déjà vu…" Ron said, sounding like his usual, sidekick self, but the seriousness came back over him like a second personality taking over, "Now you're going to make an allusion to Alice in Wonderland, aren't you?" He asked Morpheus.

Kim stared at Ron, "How did you know that?" She asked, her green eyes blinking rapidly, "And how did you do all the stuff you've been doing ever since the Merovingian gave us this mission?"

Ron shook his head, his face filled with confusion, "I don't know, KP. I don't know." He seemed as scared and frightened as a little child, but the seriousness again took over and he looked back up at Morpheus, "So, Alice in Wonderland?"

"Yes." Morpheus nodded, "I was about to say that I would assume that you're both feeling…a little like Alice…tumbling down the rabbit hole?" He smiled at Ron and Kim, "Some more than others. Let me ask you two something, do you believe in fate?"

"No." Kim answered immediately.

"I sort of do and sort of don't." Ron answered.

"Why?" Morpheus asked of them both.

Ron answered back in that same voice that just came out of nowhere, "I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life."

"What he said." Kim agreed with Ron.

"I know exactly what you two mean because this isn't the first time you've given me that answer." Morpheus responded to their answers, "You're both here not only because of the events that have led to this point, but also because you two know something. You have known it your entire life, Ronald. Kimberly has just recently begun to suspect it. What you both know you can't explain, but you know that there's something wrong with the world. You can't explain it, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind driving you mad. It is this feeling that brought you two here."

"The Matrix" Ron uttered; he couldn't explain why that word came out of his mouth but there it was.

"The Matrix?" Kim asked, "That's just an urban legend; only crazy, paranoid people believe in that." Kim was referring to the many people who call any strange happening going on around them the Matrix. No one knew exactly what it was; they just knew that something was definitely wrong.

"Wrong, Miss Possible." Morpheus objected, "The Matrix is very much real and unreal."

Kim and Ron listened to what Morpheus said because there was a great authority and gentleness in his voice. The kind of voice that the two of them knew was trustworthy.

"The Matrix is everywhere." Morpheus spoke; the more that Kim listened, the more it sounded like crazy talk. Just like being around her cousin Larry, the kind of person she never wanted to be around very much. Except for that one time when a certain archeologist, Lord Monty Fisk, became the villain known as Monkey Fist, then Cousin Larry became indispensable. Morpheus continued on his vague explanation of the Matrix, "You can see it when you look out the window or when you turn on your TV. You can feel it when you go to school, when you go to church or synagogue or to Bueno Nacho. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth."

"What truth?" Kim asked, her impatience slowly coming to the surface.

"There is no spoon." Ron uttered once again.

Morpheus smiled, "That is only half the story, Ronald. The truth that you two are slaves. Like so many others, you both were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot see, taste, or touch…a prison for your mind."

"Alright, the déjà vu is going full force over here." Ron said, his voice filled with fear.

"Yeah, this really ranks about a nine on my weird-dar." Kim commented.

"I know that's how it seems." Morpheus said as he reached into his coat and pulled out a small, reflective box, "Unfortunately, no one can really be told what the Matrix is…"

"You have to see it for yourself." Ron uttered once again, "Will the weirdness never stop?"

"You'll understand soon." Morpheus said as he opened up the small box and allowed the contents to drop into his hand. He leaned forward with his fists clenched near his face, "This is your last chance. After this, there is no going back…" He said as his left hand opened, revealing two blue pills there that looked like those NyQuil gel-caps, "You take the blue pills, you will wake up in your respective beds and believe whatever you want to believe, though I feel you have not seen the last of the Agents." He then opened his right hand and there were two red pills identical in every way except color those in his left hand, "You take the red pills and…"

"We stay in wonderland," Ron uttered, "And you show us just how deep the rabbit hole goes. Uh…you know this is really getting annoying. And I feel a real migraine coming on. Well, what do you think, KP?"

"You said we can trust him, Ron." Kim said softly, looking towards the hand that held the red pills. "That's good enough for me."

Before she reached out, she heard Morpheus say, "Remember, all I'm offering is the truth, nothing more."

She took a red pill and placed it in her mouth.

"Always the daredevil, KP." Ron said as he took the other red pill and then at the same time the two of them took the glasses of water by their sides and drank.

Morpheus smiled once again.

"Excellent. Now, come with me."

With that, Morpheus led the two teens to a room adjacent to the one where they held their council about the Matrix and the world around them. Inside that adjoining room, they saw dozens of computers and monitors that were jerry-rigged to each other in the messiest of ways. Not since the small glimpses inside Wade's room had Kim or Ron seen anything quite as technologically messy. Yet, amongst the junk of monitors, keyboards, and miscellaneous equipment, there were two chairs that sat on either side of a full length mirror as if the mirror were a doorway and the chairs were the guards or perhaps the vehicles. Coming into the room, Morpheus made quick introductions.

"This is Niobe. The young man is Ghost." Morpheus introduced two new individuals, who seemed rather shocked at new arrivals, more towards Ron than to Kim. "Please have a seat over there by the mirror and relax." Morpheus instructed.

"Morpheus, are you sure about this?" Niobe whispered as he walked toward her, "I mean…if the machines want him dead that badly and they find out we're helping him. This could jeopardize the truce."

"Is that truce really worth sacrificing his life for a second time?" Morpheus asked as he went from one piece of equipment to another.

"How are you so certain that it's him?" Niobe questioned Morpheus' judgment.

"Look at him, Niobe." Morpheus said with great earnest in his whispering voice, and nodded toward the boy, who was looking nervously at Kim, "Look at how he is looking at her. That alone is evidence. He looks at her the same way Neo looked at Trinity."

"There is a resemblance." Niobe admitted and then sighed out of her frustration and confusion, "I just don't know, but if you ever turned down a crazy stunt, I would think there was something was wrong with you."

While Morpheus conversed with Niobe, Ghost came over to Kim and Ron and placed two nodes on each of them, one for the neck and the other for the arm. To Kim and Ron, it felt almost like a trip to the doctor with all the medical kind of stuff that they'd had done to them. Taking a red pill, coming into a room filled with electronic equipment, and having those nodes placed on them.

Morpheus pulled out a cell phone, "Link, do you have their location yet?"

"Searching now, Sir." Link responded from the other end.

Morpheus then looked to the two frightened teenagers sitting by the broken mirror. At least Kim looked frightened; Ron, on the other hand, didn't seem to be that scared at all. He seemed to retain a kind of dignity that a man would have if he were going to the barber to get a haircut. It seemed odd to Morpheus that this boy seemed so much like Neo in his eyes and at the same time there was something so different about him. Thinking about the past again, he decided to give an explanation.

"The pill you two took is part of our trace program." He explained, "It disrupts your input/output carrier signal so we can pinpoint your location."

"Pinpoint our location?" Kim asked, even more confused than before, "What're you talking about? We're sitting right here."

"You'll see soon enough." Morpheus said.

As the two of them waited for something to happen, they felt as if something in the room was starting to change, like a door being opened very quietly. The two of them looked to the broken mirror that they were sitting in front of, seeing their reflection several times in the broken pieces. As they stared at the shattered reflection, they saw something that was impossible: the mirror started to melt back into one piece. All the broken pieces that were once smashed came back together again like ice cubes becoming uniform water again.

"How did that happen?" Kim asked.

Yet no one answered, then purely out of instinct, both Ron and Kim reached out to touch the surface of the mirror. Their fingers sunk into it like water, but, as they began to pull back, the consistency changed from water to that of taffy. The metallic surface beginning to stick to their fingers like maple syrup at breakfast as they pulled back from the mirror, and sat there in those chairs, gazing at the reflective liquid that began to consume their fingers.

"This can't be…" Kim uttered.

"Be what? Be real?" Ron asked.

As Ron finished Kim's thought, the reflective liquid had already consumed their hands and was moving up their arms. Kim already began to feel the panic in her, while Ron looked calm during the whole thing, and the reflective liquid moved up from their arms to their chests. It was then that a new sensation began to take over. The reflective liquid felt cold, cold as ice water to both of them.

"It's so cold, Ronnie." Kim whispered, her voice almost on the verge of tears.

"I know, Kim." Ron said, reaching out his untouched hand to Kim, "I'm here."

As the drama between Kim and Ron unfolded with the reflective liquid overtaking them, Morpheus answered the ringing cell phone. Before he even picked it up, he knew that it had to be Link with the news that he had found Kim and Ron's location.

"Found them, sir." Link confirmed Morpheus' suspicion, but he would have never guessed the next part, "And you're not going to believe this. They're at the Release Center we're docked at. One's scheduled for release next week and the other in three months."

"I knew it." Morpheus stated with a smile, "This was fate." He then turned to Kim and Ron and saw that the reflective liquid from the mirror had taken over their bodies like a massive infection and was slowly going up their necks. Yet while all this was happening they refused to let go of each other's hands, "Now relax both of you. You're going to feel a moment of discomfort, but we will be waiting for you on the other side."

The reflective liquid had already reached the tops of their necks and was going for their mouths; the two of them couldn't stand the sensation of that stuff on them. At that moment, the two of them let out screams as the reflective liquid traveled down their throats. The last thing they heard before blacking out was that their screams sounded real for a moment, and then unreal. As if the voice was going down from its regular pitch to something that sounded like an old fashioned dial-up modem. Once that was over, they were in total darkness.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Ron only experienced that moment of darkness when the reflective liquid from that mirror overtook him. He couldn't even begin to describe the sensations that he began to feel next because he was just too scared to even think. That's how it always is in extremely tense situations; life doesn't flash before your eyes. You simply pull a stupid face before the proverbial shit hits the fan. For Ron, the next thing that his senses told him was that there was something in his skin, in different areas of his skin. He opened his eyes to see that he was surrounded by some kind of pink fluid while all over his body was a spaghetti-like mesh of wires, and he even felt something in his throat, mouth, and nose. Every instinct told him to get out, but before he could even act upon it, the pink liquid began to drain like sitting in a bathtub with the drain open. He looked up and saw something above him being peeled back like a sunroof retracting on a car. With whatever was above him opening, he felt a series of hands reach down and grab him by his arms, his sides, and his legs and pull him out from wherever he was. At the same time he felt all of the things that were in his skin being removed like a band-aid being taken off, but seeming to be much deeper like needles all over him, even at the back of his head.

After all that, he was wrapped in towels and blankets that he couldn't see very much of. All of it was so blurry and his eyes hurt as if they were blackened and had swollen to the size of baseballs. It even hurt to close them or shut them real tight as he was trying to grasp what was going on around him he heard voices.

"Man, he really does look like him." One man said over Ron.

Everything to Ron felt like one of those out-of-body experiences that he heard about on the Learning Channel, the kind where people seem to leave the normal world and come to a place that they can't describe.

"I know, Link. Did I not tell you?" Morpheus said. Ron felt a hand go over his scalp, which felt as smooth and bald as the day he was born. Ironic in a way that the whole situation was almost like being born, it must be a traumatic event for an infant to go from such a safe haven into a confusing and chaotic world.

Ron looked up and saw Morpheus' face amongst the blurriness.

"How do you feel, Ronald?"

Admitting all the confusion Ron experienced in only a few minutes, he asked one thing: "Kim…" he asked, his voice sounding wheezy like an old smoker's voice and feeling difficult to speak, "Where's…KP?"

"Kimberly is fine, Ronald." Morpheus reassured the boy, "Niobe is with her now."

"Where are we?"

"Welcome to the Real World….the Land of the Awake." Morpheus said before watching him pass out into blissful blackness.

To be continued…


	3. Resurrections Chapter 3

**The Kimmatrix: Matrix Resurrections**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and Turles**

**Chapter 3: The Truth**

"_Only in their dreams are men truly free. Twas always thus and always will be."_

Robin Williams

"Dead Poets Society"

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In the real world, Ron and Kim were lying down on dirty, gray operating tables. After being brought out of those…those things that they were in, it was hard for their minds to truly grasp what was going on around them. The only thing that kept them going or at least gave them enough patience to deal with the frightening world around them was that there was a logical explanation for all of it.

At least that's what Ron thought to himself as he continued to lay there upon that cold table. In his blurry vision, Ron looked up to a blinding light above him; it had an unusual hum to it like the florescent lights that were constantly on at school. In his mind, he went back to when things seemed to be a little simpler and a little easier. Of course there were some complaints to be had, but then again who doesn't in their own life? It certainly was a lot better than what was going on right now.

He felt himself drift in and out of sleep, even though it was hard to sleep in such a place, especially without the knowledge of what was going on around him. He wanted to get up from where he was, but every inch of his body ached like nothing he had ever felt before, and he felt hungrier than he ever had been in his whole life. Thinking about his hunger, Ron wished for something from Bueno Nacho, even just a Chimmerito would be nice with a little Diablo Sauce; anything to fill that void in his stomach.

He opened his eyes again, and felt a prickling sensation on his skin, just like when he was pulled out of that place with the pink liquid. They stung him like nothing else he ever felt before, but he wanted to know. He wanted to know what was going on. He tilted his head up to see two men standing over him, one he recognized as Morpheus, but the other one he didn't recognize. He had long black hair and a goatee and he was doing something with needles. That was when Ron looked down at and saw himself covered with needles like some kind of extreme acupuncture.

"What are you doing to me…?" Ron asked, his throat still aching and voice still sounding wheezy.

"You're muscles have atrophied." Morpheus explained, "We're rebuilding them."

"Why do my eyes hurt?" Ron moaned.

"Because…" Morpheus said softly, "You've never used them before."

Ron laid his head back down onto the operating table feeling Morpheus' large, gentle hand patting his head. Ron realized how bald he was when that hand touched the skin of his scalp.

"Rest, Ronald." Morpheus advised, "The answers are coming."

Ron closed his sore eyes and began to dream. For the first part, he dreamt that he was back in Middleton where his biggest concern of the day was what he would get from Bueno Nacho. Most of all, Kim, the one person who seemed to make everyday life moderately bearable in a cruel world where bullies are popular and nice guys finish sixth in a five man race. Thoughts of Kim seemed to creep back up into his mind, and yet, at the same time, Ron was thinking to himself that she seemed to be more than just his best friend.

The second part of the dream Ron had was about that different place and different time, that place where he could change the world around him. It felt like those things that he heard about… lucid dreams, that's what they were called. Those dreams where a person realizes he or she is in a dream and can control everything around them. Then there was that woman, that woman with the black hair, black body suit, wonderful body, and that look in her eyes when she looked at Ron. There was even a small flash that Ron had where he was with her; she didn't have that body suit on, and he knew that she was naked. Yet, she had her arms around him; she felt warm; there was such a soft, yellow glow everywhere and Ron felt as if he was on top of her.

It was a good dream.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Ron had awakened in a different location. It was dingy and squalid with the metal all around him rusting and showing its signs of age. The only thing that was even remotely soft was the thin mattress he was laying upon. He sat up, and saw that his clothes were very different; they were devoid of all color, just gray, oily, unclean, and torn. They looked as though they used to be oil rags that mechanics would use around the shop. As he sat up, he looked down at his arm to see something very strange; he saw a…a…plug. That was the only way to describe it; it was a black, round plug in his arm that bulged as if there was something connected to it.

He followed the black line from the plug in his arm to an IV bag that hung over his bed. It was just like the ones that were at the hospital where Kim's mom worked. He reached out and could feel the metal of the plug underneath his skin, and as he did, he reached around the back of his head and felt another plug there. This one felt so much larger than the one in his arm. The one in his arm was the size of a quarter, while the one in the back of his head felt like the size of a half-dollar or a dollar coin.

As he looked around at the place he was in, a rusted creak sounded sharply from his right. A door that looked much like a hatch on a submarine opened and in walked Morpheus dressed in similar clothes as he was.

"Morpheus." Ron said, glad to see him and hoping he could answer his questions, "What's going on here?"

"As I said before, Ronald." Morpheus pointed out, "The answers are coming, but first of all let's see how your motor skills are. Can you stand?"

Ron was quick in his response as he got up to his feet, he then saw that he had on a pair of boots that clamped all the way up to his calves. He cradled his arm that had that plug connected to the IV bag.

"Good. Now can you walk?" Morpheus asked again.

Ron did just as Morpheus asked. He took a few steps and amazingly, to Ron anyway, he could move, when…when he thought about it, he couldn't exactly grasp when his time at that operating table was. Still, he knew that he could walk, but seemed tired, low on energy. Even though Ron was filled with questions beyond anything he ever wanted to know, there was only one that he had to know the answer to right there.

"Good." Morpheus smiled.

"What about KP?" Ron asked, "Where is she?"

"She's with Niobe." Morpheus answered, "Now, come. There's something you should see."

Morpheus wrapped Ron in a blanket and brought him through a small hallway filled with those hatch-like doorways to a ladder still so similar to that of a submarine. Morpheus was the first to climb up with Ron following behind with the blanket still wrapped around him. He looked up until Morpheus stepped off the ladder, waiting for Ron to join him wherever he was.

"This is my ship, the _Nebuchadnezzar II_." Morpheus explained, "And this is the main deck."

Ron looked around the large room, seeing it wasn't that much different from the room he woke up in. It was still the same gray and rusted walls, but this room had a lot of monitors, wires, keyboards, and chairs, and all of it seemingly arranged to serve some purpose. As Ron came around the mess of wires and whatever other equipment there was, he was shocked to see another person that he waited to see for so long. He saw Kim Possible. She was much like Ron, in those same tattered clothes and covering herself in the blanket, with just a shadow of red hair covering her scalp as opposed to the long, flowing mane he was used to seeing. Underneath the blanket, Kim was wearing an old one strap tank top that showed off her slightly toned midriff and a pair of faded jeans tucked into her combat boots.

"Kim." Ron smiled.

"This is your fault." Kim stated hoarsely, narrowing her exhausted eyes at him.

"My fault?" Ron asked, taken back by the death glare that Kim gave him.

"You can trust him, KP." Kim said, mocking Ron's voice with her hoarseness making it even worse.

"Is it really that bad?" Ron asked, blinking at how tired and weak she seemed. He knew that she must feel the same way he did: so tired, run down, and out of energy. It was comforting to know that he wasn't the only one to feel that way.

Kim ran her hand over her bare scalp before glaring at Ron again, "If I had the energy right now, I'd kick your sorry ass from here to home and back."

"Perhaps you'll have the chance later, Kimberly." Morpheus spoke up, breaking Kim's glare at her best friend, "Both of you wanted to know what the Matrix is. So come with me."

He led Kim and Ron to a small semi-circle of chairs, each one seemed to be setup like dentist chairs in the way they were leaned back. Each one had a set of monitors in the back of it, though it was hard to figure out what they were for. Still, the long awaited explanation that Morpheus promised was coming.

"Before I show either of you the truth," Morpheus began, "I'd like you to meet Link, our ship's operator."

From behind a set of equipment popped up a dark-skinned, African American man with long black hair and a goatee who had on a headset that looked like a hands-free set from a cell phone. Though it just seemed so old and messy with the way the wires were connected to it, all tangled and messed up.

"Hello." Link smiled back at the two of them.

Morpheus led Kim and Ron to the dentist chair semi-circle, "Please, have a seat and relax."

The second that Kim heard that phrase from Morpheus, her mind went into automatic defense mode. She looked at the chair, huddled the blanket close to her body, and shook her head rapidly. She seemed almost child-like in her refusal with the fear showed on her face.

"No way." She declared openly, "I'm not falling for that again."

From behind came Ron's warm hands and he placed them on her shoulders. Kim looked at him, seeing those big, brown eyes of his, and, with that one look, she felt calm once again and forgot her fears about the chair and its implications.

"It's alright, Kim." Ron whispered to her, "I'll be right here beside you, ok?"

Kim continued to look at Ron, and saw that same seriousness in his eyes that she was seeing more and more of in the last few days. Still, how could she not believe him with that look on his face? It was even more potent than her patented 'Puppy Dog Pout'. With that, Kim took Ron's hand, dropped their blankets, and the two of them went to the chairs. They watched as they were 'strapped' in, clamps securing their feet, shackles restraining their arms, and they instinctively gripped the handlebars that sat at the edge of the armrests.

As Kim lay back in that chair, she looked up at Niobe, who had placed her hand on Kim's collarbone as if she were expecting something to happen.

"Ok, you guys." She started, looking at Kim and Ron, "This will feel a little weird, so just relax and try not to jump, Ok?"

Kim nodded her head, and, at that very instant, she felt something come from behind her. More specifically, she felt that something come up from behind her head. It felt a little like a needle at the doctor's office, but it felt so much longer than a normal needle as it kept pushing into the base of her skull. Kim gasped as the sharp sting hit her full force and all went black again until she saw a blinding flash of white light.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

The sharp sting that Kim felt in the back of her head was suddenly gone, and she opened her eyes quickly. She looked around and saw nothing but an empty, white void stretching out in every direction above and below her. It was as if she were in some kind of limbo, but she could feel solid ground beneath her feet.

"W…what happened?" Kim asked softly to herself as she looked around the white emptiness when she felt something very familiar around her shoulders. She looked around and nearly let out a sharp squeal when she saw her long, ginger hair flowing down to her hips again. It was as if a part of her that she felt was missing had come back since she came to that very odd world of dinginess and gray steel. She pulled the hair over her shoulder and hugged it lovingly as if it was one of her cuddle buddies that she kept on her bed and never told anyone about. She then looked at the rest of herself and found everything was different and yet, it was as it was before. She had on her green tank top, blue jeans, and leather trench coat that Ron had gotten her.

"Ok." She mused to herself, "Something is definitely up…"

"Booyah!" She heard a voice boom out from behind her. She spun around and found Ron standing there in the blinding, white abyss; her eyes widened at what she saw on him. He was wearing a black duster style trench coat over a blood red shirt with gold trim around his collar, a pair of form fitting black jeans, a pair of black buckled combat boots, and a pair of sunglasses that were very similar in style to those of the Agents who attacked them at Drakken's base.

"Ron?" Kim asked, her voice sounding very stunned.

"You were expecting Colin Farrell?" Ron asked as he smiled at her and pulled off his sunglasses. "Wonder where these came from?" He asked as he looked at his sunglasses and set them in his inner coat pocket. As the sunglasses slipped down into the pocket, they hit an obstruction.

"Watch it!" A squeaky voice barked out from his pocket.

Ron, immediately recognizing the voice, reached into his pocket. He pulled out the sunglasses and set them in a different pocket, leaving his hand free to explore his hunch of what else was in there. He reached in, felt something very warm and smooth, gripped around it softly and pulled it back out as his eyes lit up when he saw the very familiar creature that he had pulled out of his pocket.

"Rufus!" Ron cheered with the greatest of glee when the naked mole rat jumped from his hand and hugged Ron's face, "I was worried about you, ol' buddy!"

"Hmmm, this is very unusual." An older voice called out.

Both teens jumped when they heard the third voice; they looked around and saw Morpheus standing in the white emptiness. He was dressed in that same alligator skin trench coat and armless sunglasses he wore when they met him in that alleyway.

"What'd you mean?" Kim asked of him, "And what is this place?

"I was saying that it was unusual about that animal." Morpheus explained, "It seems that Ron is so attached to it that it has become part of what we call Residual Self Image, but this is something that I haven't quite seen before."

"Um…" Ron uttered as he scratched his head, "You lost me at the part where you said that it was unusual…"

"Residual Self Image, Ronald." Morpheus stated, "It's the mental projection of your digital self."

"Alright, what's the bit?" Kim asked, "Where are we?"

"This is the Construct." Morpheus said as he presented the white nothingness around him, "It's our loading program. From here we can load anything from clothing, equipment, weapons, training simulations, anything we need."

As Morpheus made his explanation, a set of chairs and an old TV set appeared out of nowhere. The thing that was even more eerie to both Kim and Ron was that the chairs, a red leather chair and love seat, were just like the ones that they saw back at that apartment building where they were given the choice of the red or blue pills. The TV set was an old model, the kind that Ron would see in those old TV shows on that TV Trash channel where he first saw The Fearless Ferret.

"A computer program." Ron stated with that sense of déjà vu coming back to him full force as if it was a lost childhood memory that he was forced to relive.

Kim walked over to the red leather love seat and ran her hands across it, feeling its smoothness as well as its years of age. Everything about it was registering in her mind; it seemed as real as it could be. Just like anything else that she had touched in the past. Yet, her mind just couldn't grasp what was going on around her: the world of gray and dinginess, the white emptiness, and those chairs appearing out of nowhere.

"You mean… right now… we're inside a computer program?" Kim said, looking more shocked by the second.

"Is it really so hard to believe? Your clothes are different; the plugs in your arms and head are gone, and your hair has changed." Morpheus stated matter-of-factly.

"This can't…" She stammered, "It just… it just can't be real."

"What is 'real'?" Morpheus questioned like a philosopher, "How do you define 'real'? If you are talking about what you can see, smell, feel, and taste, then 'real' is only electrical signals interpreted by your brain."

"He's got you there, KP." Ron said as he approached Kim and the back of the red leather love seat.

"Please, have a seat, both of you." Morpheus asked of the teens.

"You've been asking us to do that a lot." Ron observed.

"Yes." Morpheus nodded as he sat down in the red leather seat and picked up the remote control sitting on the chair's armrest. "This is the world as you know it." Morpheus said as he turned on the television while Kim and Ron sat down to look at it. They half-expected the TV to be in black and white, but, amazingly enough, it was in full and complete color. They saw the sights of Middleton as well as sights from around the world: New York, San Francisco, Paris, London, Venice, Tokyo, and Berlin. All of them with life going on as it always, not a single worry in the world except the ones in their own little micro-cosmos.

"The world as it was at the start of the twenty-first century." Morpheus continued as he flipped through the channels, showing the different sights within each city as if he was channel surfing. "It exists now only as a massive, world-wide, neural interactive simulation, that we call the Matrix. This is the world as it exists today…"

He changed the channel again. Kim and Ron looked in horror and disbelief at what they saw. Every city in the world that was once teeming with life and people going from home to work and back again, cars going to and from their various destinations, all of it simply lay in ruin with the sky dark and gray above them. The buildings were as black as charcoal; the windows were cracked and falling out, and not a single person could be seen anywhere. Then the channel on that old television changed, and they saw Middleton once again. Their hometown, a place that was once a verdant utopia, was like all the other cities that they saw: dark, bleak, and broken down.

"As you both know," Morpheus continued his explanation, "Middleton, Colorado was home to the Global Justice Network. It, as well as all other threats, was quickly annihilated."

Kim and Ron looked at one another, while Ron gripped the armrests of the loveseat with a fearful, yet knowing expression on his face as if the truth was hiding behind a misty cloud in his mind, and the cloud was beginning to clear away. With his other hand, he reached out and took Kim's into his as if silently reassuring her that he was still at her side.

"We only have bits and pieces of information. You believe that the year is 2004, when it is actually closer to 2215. I can't telly ou exactly what year it is because we honestly don't know." Morpheus said, "What we do know is that sometime in the early twenty-first century, all of mankind was united in celebration. We marveled at our own magnificence as we gave birth to A.I."

"A.I.?" Kim asked, "You mean Artificial Intelligence?"

Morpheus nodded, "A singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines. We don't know who struck first, us or them, but we do know that it was us that scorched the sky." Morpheus pointed upward as if telling them that he wanted them to see something.

Kim and Ron looked up and saw clouds, black clouds like no storm that the two of them had ever seen in their entire lives. The only source of light was the sparks of lightning that would arc from one cloud to another, and even that wasn't enough to illuminate much of anything. They looked around and saw themselves surrounded by the picture that had filled the TV.

"Welcome to the Desert of the Real." Morpheus continued, "At the time, they were dependant upon solar energy, and it was believed that they wouldn't be able to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun. Throughout human history, we've been dependent upon machines to survive." Morpheus smirked, "Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony."

As the lightning sparked overhead, Kim and Ron looked back at the television and saw the screen start to turn a bright reddish pink. As it started to zoom out, they could see some kind of shape behind it as Morpheus continued his answers to their questions.

"The human body," he said as the screen continued to zoom out, "generates more bioelectricity than a one-hundred-twenty volt battery and over twenty five thousand BTUs of body heat. Combined with a form of fusion, the machines had found all the energy that they would ever need."

Kim and Ron looked beyond the television screen and saw a black field with thousands upon thousands of pillars with those little pods containing human infants suspended in that red-pink fluid. It reminded them both of that thing that they came out of as if they were being born in some very bizarre way.

"There are fields," Morpheus said, his voice starting to take a very sad and frightened tone, "Endless fields where human beings are no longer born; we are grown."

Kim and Ron saw the machines that floated above the fields, taking the little pods containing human infants into their massive bodies. It was such a surrealistic nightmare that human beings were being treated like livestock…even livestock seemed too high of a distinction. They were treated more like crops.

"For the longest time," Morpheus reminisced about his own past; about the whole experience that Kim and Ron were having, "I wouldn't believe it, and then I saw the fields with my own eyes; I watched them liquefy the dead so that they could be fed intravenously to the living, and standing there facing the horrifying precision, I came to realize the obviousness of truth."

Everything around Kim and Ron returned to that white void that held only the chairs and that old television set. They watched as Morpheus came around with that remote control in his hand.

"What is the Matrix?" He asked again as he turned off the television, which showed a human infant with all those wire and plugs all over its body, sleeping there not realizing everything that was going on in the world around it.

"Control." Ron picked up the answer to Morpheus' question.

"Exactly, Ronald." Morpheus said, "The Matrix is a computer generated dream world built by the machines to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this:" He said as he held up a small C-cell battery in front of Kim and Ron's face and simplifying everything in such a simple gesture.

"The machines had many means of control." Morpheus continued as the white void around them changed instantly as if they were changing between programs on a computer screen. They watched as they found themselves on a rooftop, and on the rooftop was a man that resembled Ron, only he was older, he had dark, blackish brown hair, smaller ears, and a more matured face with no freckles. He wore a long trench coat and a pair of oval sunglasses. He was fighting the same men that attacked Kim and Ron at Drakken's lair; the men in the suits. "This man was quite possibly their biggest mistake. He, too, was a method of control…The One."

Kim and Ron saw one of the men in suits try to shoot this older man, and they watched in amazement as he leaned back, making the bullets miss him almost entirely, only grazing different parts of his body.

"The One," Morpheus continued, "had the ability to control the Matrix, change whatever he wanted, remake the Matrix as he saw fit, but that gift came at a monumental price."

They watched as the scene around them changed once again to a long hallway that they assumed was part of an apartment complex or some kind of hotel. The place, like so many others that Kim and Ron had been to recently, seemed very run down with all the wires hanging from the ceiling, the walls needing paint, and the floors needing carpeting, but it wasn't those things that caught their attention. It was the man who stood at one end of the hallway and, strangely enough, who had several bullet holes in his chest. He should have been dead, but he wasn't. He just stood there as if he was waiting for something, then he looked down the hallway as Kim and Ron heard gunshots.

"No." The man said as the bullets flew down the hallway. He held out his hand and it looked as though time was slowing down around those bullets as their speed decreased from a blur to crawl, until they stopped completely in mid-air. He lowered his hand and the bullets fell to the ground as if they were dropped instead of being fired out.

There were six 'Ones'," Morpheus stated, "The first five did as they were meant to do."

The room around them changed once again. This time to a place that was similar to that "Construct" as Morpheus called it. Yet the room was smaller, it felt smaller with the circular enclosure of small television screens. They saw that same man, the one who had stopped the bullets in mid-air, but he was dressed differently, he was dressed in a long duster that was fully buttoned up, almost like a priest's robe with a pair of oval sunglasses on as well. Sitting in front of this man was an older man, who had white hair and beard that seemed to blend very nicely with his white suit.

"When their time had come," Morpheus explained, "when Zion, the last human city, was destroyed, each version of the One chose a group of humans from the Matrix, and released them with the purpose of rebuilding Zion, and aiding the machines in reloading the Matrix, but the last version was different; the One was given a choice, and he chose to fight instead of surrender."

"Neo…" Ron uttered softly with his eyes widening in realization,

"Yes, that was his name." Morpheus nodded as the scene around them changed once again, to where they saw this man named Neo leaving that TV enclosed room and was flying. Yes, the man was flying around as if he was some kind of superhero straight out of the comic books, until he came under a woman falling to the ground; he caught her and brought her to the top of a roof.

"His death," Morpheus continued, "Is the reason you are here today, both of you. We are at peace now. While some programs, machines, and even some humans long to continue the war, we are at peace nonetheless. Mankind is slowly being awoken from its long slumber, as you both have been."

Morpheus grabbed the remote and turned off the TV again, and everything around them became white once again, just that white void with those chairs and that TV set. The truth began to sink in for Kim and Ron, though Kim seemed to take it the hardest. It seemed that it was much like losing one's innocence as a child and finding out that the world truly isn't a happy place; that it is filled with pain, misery, and suffering.

"So we've been…dreaming?" Kim choked out, "It's all been fake…all of it…"

"That's not true, KP." Ron tried to reason with his best friend as he squeezed her hand in his.

"No, Ron, it isn't real!" Kim yelled, standing up and backing away from both Ron and Morpheus, "How can you be taking this so easily, Ron! Are you fake too? Is anything real?" She screamed as her body beginning to tremble.

"I didn't say it would be easy, Kimberly." Morpheus said soothingly, "I just said it would be the truth."

Ron tried to approach his best friend, hoping that he could comfort her in some way.

"STOP! Don't touch me!" Kim spat, slapping Ron's hands away from her, "I want to go home! I want to get out of here! LET ME OUT! I WANT OUT!"

Everything went black for a moment, and then Kim opened her eyes with a gasp as if she had awakened from a terrible nightmare, but then she quickly realized that it was real; ironic how the truth can be so terribly different from the dream. She tried to get out of the jack chair, but was being held down by two pairs of hands.

"Get this thing out of me!" She cried out, her voice very ragged and feeling the weight of the jack that was in the back of her head, until, at last, the jack was out of her head and she tore through the pairs of hands that held her to the chair.

"I don't want to be here!" She wheezed, "I want to go home…" She sobbed and began to tremble as if she was having a seizure.

"She's gonna pop!" Niobe called to Morpheus.

"Breathe, Kimberly." Morpheus called out, "Just breathe."

She couldn't hold back any longer and fell on her hands and knees to the grated floor, depositing her last meal through the metal grid that lay underneath her. With that last spout, she passed out on that floor.

"Kim!" Ron gasped, jumping out of his jack chair and going straight to her side. He grabbed a rag from beside one of the chairs, took Kim in his arms and, feeling how limp she was after she had thrown up her last meal…whatever it was, took the rag and cleaned off of her face. He hugged her tight, hoping that she would awaken, but she didn't. He placed his head on her shoulder and softly sobbed while her body hung lifeless in his arms.

"That's enough for today." Morpheus stated, walking towards them, "Niobe, take them to their quarters."

"I'm staying with her." Ron said as Morpheus gave his order while reluctantly allowing Niobe to pick up the unconscious Kim in her arms.

Niobe looked at Ron and then back at Morpheus, wondering if this should be allowed. Morpheus nodded, saying that it was perfectly alright.

"Ok, kid," Niobe said as she picked up Kim, "Let's get her in bed."

Niobe carried the passed out teen and led her friend out of the jack room and down through the decks of the _Nebuchadnezzar II_ back to their room.

As the three of them left, the others had a very odd feeling about them. Sure, this sort of thing happened whenever a just-released person found out the truth, but there was something very, very different about all of it, and Link was the first one to say something about it.

"I've never seen that before." He stated.

"You've been an operator how long and never seen someone pop before?" Ghost asked, cocking an eyebrow at his friend. He was right after all. Everyone who had been freed from the Matrix had the same reaction to it, which is always understandable when one finds out that everything in their entire life was fabricated.

"No, not that." Link stated as he shook his head at Ghost, "I'm talking about the boy. He took the news and didn't pop. That just doesn't happen."

Ghost tried to take a guess at what Link meant, "A lot?" He asked, very interested about where Link was going with this train of thought.

"Ever." Morpheus finished with a proud smile as he gazed at the door that Ron, Kim, and Niobe left through. He knew that everything he had hoped for was riding on that boy, even though so much about the situation was different from the last time.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

The truth was hard for Kim to swallow, especially after she had lost whatever it was she ate all over the floor of the _Neb II_. She dreamt as she slept off the shock from all that had happened to her. She dreamt about being home, being with her family, with her mom the neurosurgeon, her father the rocket scientist, the tweebs Jim and Tim, Monique, and the squad. Even though she despised Bonnie, she missed her on a certain level. It was her entire world. Even though she had traveled all over the place, she felt her true home was in Middleton, and she missed everything about it, and then the dream ended.

Kim's eyes slowly opened. The world was blurry all around her until a familiar shape and voice came through. She felt herself being propped up and the voice reaching her.

"Kim." The voice called to her.

The world became clearer and sharper to Kim's eyes and ears, "R…Ron?" She asked unsteadily.

She saw a small banged up cup being held in front of her face with its lip being held in front of hers.

"Right here, KP." Ron said, bringing the cup closer to Kim's mouth, "It's water. It might taste a little funky, but it's definitely drinkable."

She took a few sips and found out how right Ron was about the taste of the water; it was rather funky. It was kind of stale and old as if it had been sitting in the cup for days. There were even a few impurities in the metal of the cup itself that gave it a kind of metallic taste. As soon as she took the sips, she looked back up at Ron.

"What time is it?" She asked.

"Three fifteen in the morning…I think." Ron said with a sleepy smile.

"You've stayed up with me this late?" Kim asked, rather surprised at Ron for doing something like that, "You should be sleeping or at least resting." She said it in that same way that she had in the times before: being her bossy self. It reminded Ron of when Kim was asked to be the soccer coach of Jim and Tim's soccer team. Her "Kim-ness" (as Ron called it) seemed to take away the fun of the game. She was just being bossy, demanding, and asking more of the team than they could give. After all, it was just a game to the children, as Ron so poignantly tried to make Kim realize.

"I'm ok." He replied, "Besides, I'm sure you can understand me having a lot on my mind, after what we both found out."

"I can't go back, can I?"

"I don't think so. But if you could, would you really want to?"

Kim nodded, flinching slightly at the thought.

"Hey, it can't be that bad, KP." Ron smiled, trying to help Kim feel a little better about such a bleak situation, "We'll get through this together. We're a team, remember? No matter where we go, that isn't going to change, right?"

"Right." Kim nodded again and even smiled a little bit, feeling a little braver just like she used to be, "But it'll take a lot of getting used to…"

"Yeah, I guess so." Ron said as he looked at the door warily. He got back to his feet and was about to head to the door, but something stopped him.

"Ron?" Kim spoke up softly.

Ron turned back around to look at his best friend, "Yeah, KP?" he asked, wondering what she would need of him.

"Sleep with me?" Kim asked, scooting over on the cot leaving a wide enough space for Ron to crawl into.

Ron looked down and then back at Kim. His face then turned a very deep, scarlet red color. After all, he tried to get women to go out with him and he never kissed a woman before, and now his best friend, of all people, was asking him to sleep with her. His pulse raced and blood rushed into his ears until he could hear his heartbeat.

Kim recognized what exactly Ron was thinking about. "Not like that, you goof!" she shouted as she took her pillow and slapped Ron with it across his midsection. Ron mildly recovered from the shock of Kim's proposal and she set the pillow back into place and she said, "I just meant I don't want to be alone tonight, ok?"

Ron nodded in understanding, though still blushing a little bit; he sat down on the bed, took off his boots, and curled up beside her, while Kim did the same, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Thanks, Ron." She sighed getting comfortable, "I don't know what I'd do without you as my best friend." She said it as if she were on the verge of crying.

Ron smiled and with one free arm he pulled the blanket around himself and Kim, "You'll never have to worry 'bout that, Kim. I'm not going anywhere." He said softly before kissing her forehead and tried to sleep beside her.

It still felt a little strange for Ron to sleep next to a girl, and his best friend, on top of that. Yet, Ron understood something about Kim. He knew a secret of hers that she would never tell anyone else, or at least not under her own power. Ron remembered that time Kim was hit by Drakken's truth ray and it made her spill the beans left and right about herself. One such truth was about her Cuddle Buddies: that she could never get to sleep without her Pandaroo. Perhaps that's what it was, as Ron thought about it, that she missed so much of home and the old life that she wanted to be with something or someone that reminded her of that life.

"Ron?" Kim whispered, "Are you asleep yet?"

"No, KP." Ron answered back.

"Can you sing that song for me?" She asked.

"What song?" Ron asked.

"The one you sang to me as a kid."

Ron began to smile as he thought about that song and the events surrounding it. Kim and Ron did have sleepovers as kids, but then the dynamics of such a situation usually changes when a boy and a girl hit puberty. Such events can't be done anymore, probably because the parents say that it would be too awkward, plus the fact that…it's just different that when a boy and a girl get to a certain age, sleeping in the same room is no longer an innocent thing to do. Perhaps that's where Ron and Kim seemed to separate on such a level.

Though there was one night that was special. It was during one summer when they were ten…or maybe it was eleven, during a weekend in July that Kim and Ron were having a sleep over weekend at her house. They did all kinds of stuff together while her father worked at the lab and her mother took care of the twins. There were such fond memories, such as an old tire swing that the two of them shared, even a small skinny dipping trip with the sun setting on that warm July day, such innocence that they had. Later on that night, a storm blew in out of nowhere, and inside, Kim was huddled in her bed and curling herself tighter with each flash of lightning… until Ron came in. He slipped under the covers with her and held her in his arms and sang a song to her. It was a song that Ron had heard on an old, country radio station that he loved so much, and it was something that he sang to himself to help him relax. He whispered the song into Kim's ears, and as he sang that song to her, it calmed her down enough for her to sleep in Ron's arms.

It was there on that cold mattress on the _Nebuchadnezzar II_ that the song and Ron's soothing voice was called into action once again. Ron took Kim in his arms and began to sing. The song was called, "Whenever You Come Around" by Vince Gill. He began the song by imitating the guitar chords that the song began with.

_Face of an angel_

_Pretty eyes that shine_

_I lie awake at night wishing you were mine_

_I'm standing here holding the biggest heartache in town_

_Whenever you come around _

_I get weak in the knees_

_And I lose my breath_

_Oh, I try to speak but the words won't come, I'm so scared to death_

_And when you smile that smile_

_The world turns upside down_

_Whenever you come around_

Ron thought about the words to the song and then realized that he really didn't understand the meaning of it all as a boy. He only enjoyed it because of how it sounded, yet hearing the words coming from his own lips, he started to understand all of it so very, very well. Kim wrapped her arms tighter around Ron's neck, and Ron did feel as if he were Kim's Cuddlebuddy, but a plush doll could not do what he was doing for Kim. He was comforting her in one of their bleakest hours. Even the second verse to the song felt so much like Ron's life that he couldn't help putting his own emotions into it.

_I feel so helpless_

_I feel just like a kid_

_What is it about you_

_That makes me keep my feelings hid_

_Wish I could tell you_

_But the words can't be found_

_Whenever you come around_

_I get weak in the knees_

_And I lose my breath_

_Oh, I try to speak but the words won't come, I'm so scared to death_

_And when you smile that smile_

_The world turns upside down_

_Whenever you come around_

_Whenever you come around_

Just like that warm July weekend, Ron felt Kim's body start to relax in his arms and as she did, Ron began to feel himself start to drift away into sleep as well.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Ron and Kim were fast asleep in each others arms. The two of them looked downright peaceful there in their bed. Despite all that had happened, they just slept there as if nothing incredible had happened to them. Yet, all that changed instantly when the two of them jerked awake to the sound of pounding at the metal door of their room. The two of them got up quickly as the door opened and in walked Morpheus.

"Good morning." He said sitting down on bed across from them, "I wanted to apologize for yesterday. I know that the truth can be a hard thing to hear, comprehend, and take in. I too was newly freed from the Matrix like you, but then the times were much bleaker. We have peace now. We do not have to hide as much as we did before."

As Kim sat up, she wanted to know something, "Morpheus, sir." She spoke up politely, "I was wondering, if there's peace now, why were the… Agents… after Ron yesterday?"

"Do you recall when I spoke about the One?" Morpheus asked looking at Ron, "The One is an anomaly, the remainder of an unbalanced equation that the creator of the Matrix could never work out. I guess you could draw its similarity to Pi. There have been six Ones, including Neo. But now, I believe the seventh has come earlier than usual."

Morpheus then looked over at Ron and gave him a smile, "Ron, lately have you been able to see things others can't? Have you noticed items that didn't look as if they belong, or noticed the world around you appear to change into something you can't describe properly? I did witness you disarming the Agents yesterday and only one other person could have done that."

"Are you saying I'm the newest One?" Ron asked as a strange nervousness started to grow in his stomach, probably the same kind of feeling that Kim had when she had learned of the truth.

"No, I have been informed that the One only comes every one hundred years, and Neo fell sixteen years ago." Morpheus stated, his eyes growing sad for his lost friend, "You hold traits of the One, but I am not fit to determine if you are or not."

"Then who is?" Kim asked.

"That is something to be saved for later." Morpheus explained, hoping that the issue would be placed aside for the moment, "Now then, are you two ready for some lessons?" He asked as if the lessons were to be likened to a day at a water park.

Ron threw his head back, tapping it lightly against the metal bulkheads of the _Neb II_ and said with a loud sigh, "You're telling us that we have to go to school out here?"

"I think you'll find these lessons different than what you are accustomed to, Ronald." Morpheus smiled, "Get dressed and follow me."

Both Kim and Ron followed Morpheus' instructions, though there wasn't that much to getting dressed since they slept in their clothes. All that they would really need to do is just put on their boots, and they'd be ready to go anywhere. With boots firmly laced and latched up, they followed Morpheus back up to the main deck to the Jack Chairs; where Kim and Ron learned the truth about the Matrix.

At one end of the semi-circle of jack chairs was Link, who popped out from behind his wall of half-a-dozen monitors filled with code and keyboards similar and so dissimilar to those that Kim and Ron had used before.

"Morning, guys and doll." Link smiled as if he was about ready to serve them coffee, "Sleep good?"

Kim and Ron didn't answer Link's question.

"You will tonight; I guarantee you it. I'm gonna make you two STRONG!"

"What does he mean?" Kim asked Morpheus.

Morpheus smiled, "You'll see very shortly." He then turned to address Link, "I trust you know what to do at this point, Link?"

"Yes, sir, I do, sir." Link nodded.

"I'll be back to check on you both." Morpheus said as he left Kim and Ron in Link's care. Link took both Kim and Ron over to the jack chairs, set them both in place, inserted the data plug into the back of their heads and then went back to his station. At his operator's station, he was going through disks just like a little kid going through his Yu-Gi-Oh card collection trying to find that one card that they treasured over all the others.

"Let's see." Link smiled, "The standard procedure is to go through operational programs, but that's major boring shit…" He flipped through the disks, making the same comment about each of them, "Shit…shit…shit…shit…shit…ah, here we go…how about this?" He held up the disk to show Kim and Ron, but from where they were they couldn't see the scratched on label that said combat training on it.

As Link loaded the disk into his station, Kim and Ron looked up to the small monitor above their heads. On it they saw a rather strange arrangement, a figure was standing in one corner and was taking different martial arts positions, in the other corner was a human brain, and at the bottom was a title.

"Ju-jitsu?" Ron asked, "We're going to learn Ju-jitsu?"

Kim looked confused and asked, "Wait a sec, how are we going to learn Ju-jitsu while we're sitting in these chairs? And no offense, but I already know sixteen styles of Kung-Fu."

Link just smiled and winked at the two teens as he returned back to his station and pressed a few buttons. Then, Kim and Ron felt something prick them in the back of their heads. It was like that feeling they had when they were brought into the Construct, except this time it felt very, very different. It was as if something had opened in their heads; a floodgate of information flowed into their minds. It was only for a few seconds, but it was the longest few seconds that the two of them had ever experienced. They both gripped onto the handles of their respective armrests. Then it ended, and both Kim and Ron were gasping for breath, and yet, they couldn't help being amazed at what happened. It was only a few seconds ago that neither one knew a thing about Ju-jitsu, and now they knew everything there was to know about it.

"So, that's how he did that." Ron said with a smile on his lips as he looked over at Kim.

"Holy shit." Kim said like a woman coming down from the high of her greatest orgasm.

"Yeah." Ron agreed, "Where was this stuff when I needed it for school?"

"Hey Mikey, I think they like it." Link laughed for a moment to himself, "How 'bout some more?"

Kim sat back with a great smile on her face, "Bring it on, Link."

"Hell yes!" Ron uttered once again as he sat back and let the déjà vu from that one sentence and the feeling of more knowledge being uploaded into his brain overtake him.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

The hours had passed rather swiftly for Kim and Ron, though for Link it was more like a wade through almost frozen molasses. Then again, Kim and Ron were the ones having all the fun, soaking up all the information that he could dish out. He was looking at their progress for the combat program on Kung Fu, or at least one of the many styles of Kung Fu that he had in his disk library. As he continued to watch, Morpheus came up from behind him.

"How are they doing, Link?" He asked looking at the screens and then at the two teenagers.

"Six hours so far." Link smiled in his report to Morpheus, "They're playing chicken right now. First one to say they've had enough loses, and I'm running out of disks to give them."

Morpheus smiled along with Link. It was just like Neo when he first came out of the Matrix. He couldn't help absorbing all that information that he could. Morpheus then walked around Link's workstation and over to the two teens in their jack chairs. He could already see that the aforementioned six hours was showing itself on their bodies with the sheens of sweat they had developed. The information had already gone through for them both and Ron looked up at Morpheus with a smile on his face.

"I know Kung Fu." He laughed as he looked up at Morpheus.

"Oh yeah, Ron?" Kim asked with that cocky slyness in her voice, "So do I, along with my other sixteen styles of Kung Fu."

"But you don't know Monkey Kung Fu, now do ya, KP?" Ron shot back at Kim.

"Hmmm, sounds like a challenge," a voice called out. Morpheus, Kim and Ron looked and saw Niobe walking into the room "Doesn't it, Morpheus?"

"Indeed, it does." Morpheus agreed and addressed both Kim and Ron, "Let's see what you two have learned."

Kim and Ron watched as Morpheus and Niobe, with a little bit of help from Link, got into two of the empty jack chairs. It was pretty obvious what he was doing, Kim and Ron had already figured out that he was plugging them in with the data cable that connected to that hole in the back of their heads. Kim and Ron waited with great anticipation like they were going to their favorite event. Of course the two teens differed in what that event might be. In Kim's case, it would have been a boy band concert. For Ron, the experience would have been tantamount to ringside tickets to the GWA Summerslam event. But this was ten times more exciting than either because they would have a chance to see what they could do.

"I am furiously psyched, KP!" Ron said as Link was connecting Niobe and Morpheus into their jack chairs.

"Me too, Ron." Kim smiled, "Me too, I mean, I'm already good at martial arts in the Matrix, but who knows what kinds of things I can do now."

"You'll see soon enough." Morpheus answered back.

The moment was drawing closer as soon as Link took his seat behind his terminals. There were a few clicks of fingers hitting buttons, and Kim and Ron knew what to expect next. Just like before with the loading of the construct, the two of them felt themselves fall into darkness as their eyes closed. There was a flash of light and, even though they were lying back in those chairs, the next sensation that they felt was that they were standing up. They opened their eyes and couldn't believe what they were seeing.

Kim and Ron found themselves in a karate dojo, all wood and rice paper construction, with Japanese kanji at one end over racks of spears, swords, sais, and staves. While along the walls of the high ceiling were vertical banners that had green print on them that seemed to resemble the code on the screens that Link was looking at. Kim and Ron immediately looked at one another, seeing the new martial arts uniforms that they had. Kim's was black, which contrasted against her ginger hair that she was running her hands lovingly through once again. Ron's, on the other hand, was red yet both of them had black belts tied around their waist. Then again, why not? They had learned nearly every martial arts style that Link could give them. Ron couldn't help staring into the somewhat open top of Kim's uniform, but Kim caught on right away.

"Ron!" She gasped and closed her top tighter to show less cleavage, "Grow up!"

"This is a sparring program." Morpheus stated, unfazed by the exchange of the two teens as he walked into the room with Niobe. Both were in similar uniforms to Ron's and Kim's, though Morpheus' was black and Niobe's was red, "It's a training program similar to the programmed reality of the Matrix. It has the same rules, like gravity. What you two must learn is that these rules are no different than the rules of a computer system. Some rules can be bent, while others can be broken. I have often heard, from recently freed people, and also from some inside the Matrix that Team Possible is the most formidable fighting force one can go up against. I wish to learn if this is a fact."

"So, ya wanna play with the Ron-dawg, huh?" Ron asked very confidently in that buffoonish tone that he always had when he never took anything seriously.

"Ms. Fashion Nightmare's mine" Kim smirked as she popped her knuckles and her eyes set upon Niobe, "You can take Mr. Clean."

"I heard that." Morpheus stated in his captain's tone.

"Kim." Ron said with the tone of his voice changing drastically to an uncharacteristic seriousness just like he had so many times before in recent days. "Remember what Morpheus said: this isn't real. We're not really here, so just think of a video game where you can cheat if you want to. You can bet these two will."

"How do you know about all this?" Kim asked, taken aback by all the seriousness that emanated from Ron. Sure, he may have learned all those martial arts in only a few hours, but it seemed so… un-Ron to be serious.

Ron paused a moment as he thought about Kim's question, "I don't know." He said sounding surprised at himself as well, "I just do." He shook his head trying to shake off the feeling of déjà vu all over again, "Just remember: Don't try. Do."

"Whatever you say, Master Yoda." Kim smirked before running directly at Niobe. Her eyes were set on the red-garbed lady like a cat to a mouse. She dashed across the dojo floor with speeds that she never thought she could achieve, even with those super speed shoes that she had borrowed that one time. With her new speed, she came within only a foot of Niobe and dropped down to the floor giving her a quick leg sweep. Niobe easily jumped over Kim's attack. Kim looked up at Niobe and saw how high she had jumped. It seemed impossible that Niobe could jump nearly fifteen feet straight up, but that wasn't the wild part of it; what struck Kim the hardest was the fact that it looked like Niobe was floating, at least for a moment. She then came back down with quick and brutal strike, slamming her foot down into Kim's chest, which knocked her across the room.

While this happened, Morpheus and Ron seemed to be having a staring contest. "Let us see what you can do," Morpheus said as he ran towards Ron and threw a punch at his chest. It seemed trivial to Morpheus that Ron would have easily have blocked or at least dodged it like Neo did when they first sparred together. To his surprise, as soon as his fist was about to make contact with Ron's nose, he vanished. Morpheus looked around surprised, and turned to glace behind him only to see a flash of someone's foot before he flew across the dojo against one of the pillars that broke in half upon Morpheus' impact with it.

"You're too slow, old man." Ron smirked, completely unaware of how fast he was truly moving. Morpheus was surprised at the speed that Ron had grasped the reality of this fabricated reality. Even Neo didn't exactly catch on that quick. He had to have Morpheus knock him around a few times before he got the hang of things.

While Morpheus was getting used to how fast Ron had adapted to the reality of the Matrix, Kim was starting to get the hang of things as well in her fight with Niobe. She took a deep breath, dodged a punch from Niobe, reached over and grabbed Niobe's arm and leaned forward in a scorpion kick. As her foot made contact with Niobe's face, she had let go of her arm and then jumped up into a crane kick. Her hips were at eye level to Niobe and she held it there for a half a second before kicking Niobe across the dojo.

On the other side of the dojo, the fight between Morpheus and Ron continued. Their punches were being exchanged as quickly as the firing of synapses in a human brain. It seemed almost inhuman that they would be moving so fast that their limbs would become blurs. Of course, it had all happened before, at least from Morpheus' perspective; Ron was still fuzzy on how he was able to do all of it. Then again, he was just too excited that he was able to do all of it period.

"Come on! Try to stop me!" Morpheus ordered before running toward the teen and diving at him. Ron stepped back and held out his hands, only thinking to himself that he should try to stop Morpheus before he could make his next attack. That time, he didn't close his eyes as he had before and he witnessed something that only had happened by accident the last time. As Morpheus was making his dive for Ron, he stopped in mid-air just like Shego had when she tried the same tactic. Morpheus smiled while still in mid-air before Ron had let go of his hold on him, and the old man dropped to the floor with a very sickening thud.

"Very good." Morpheus laughed as Ron helped him off of the floor.

Morpheus and Ron looked over to the other side of the dojo to see that Kim and Niobe had also stopped their little fight.

"You know, if you can't beat us, you could always join us." Ron replied smugly, but lost the smile on his face when he saw Morpheus wasn't laughing. Ron wanted to know what he had said or done to make Morpheus look at him like that, but Niobe beat him to the punch.

"Is something wrong, Morpheus?" Niobe asked worriedly as she and Kim walked over to them.

"Let's try something else." Morpheus said to the group, shaking off the feeling that he had once before. He looked up to the ceiling of the dojo and called out as if he was speaking with God, "Link, load the next program."

With that request, Kim and Ron saw the dojo fade into white as if a contrasting setting had been turned up too high. That was when they had realized that the sparring program had faded back to the Construct program, and from the whiteness came the scene of a busy city with people walking around and going from place to place. Ron and Kim saw that theirs as well as Niobe's and Morpheus' clothes had changed into those fashionable clothes of snakeskin leather, plastic, and PVC. All around them they saw all different kinds of people wearing nothing but colors of black or white. Not a single ounce of color was in sight, as far as clothes went. It was as if they had stepped into the movie 'Pleasantville'.

"Come along, you two." Morpheus stated as he and Niobe walked down the streets with Kim and Ron trying to follow behind without being pushed back by the bustle of people going in the opposite direction.

"Look around you." Morpheus said to Ron and Kim, "There are a quarter of a million people still plugged into the Matrix. Many of which are not ready to accept the truth of the world around them. Because of the peace treaty and the sky clean-up, we are freeing close to fifty a month. Zion is now not the only human city any longer. The human race is slowly starting to repopulate the earth once again, but we are not ready to free everyone, and many of those that remain in the Matrix will probably not accept the truth so easily or at all. Some of them are so inert, so helplessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it."

As Kim and Ron tried to keep up with Morpheus amongst all the busy people, Ron noticed something. It was coming out of the crowd with a radiance to it like a white light in a dark room. It became clearer to Ron when he saw it passing by; it was a beautiful woman in a red dress. She was blonde-haired and blue-eyed like Tara from the old cheerleading squad, but this woman was so much more alluring to Ron's teenage eyes and it seemed like everything around him slowed down as she swaggered past him before melting back into the crowd of bi-chromatically dressed people.

"Ronald," Morpheus spoke, grabbing the boy's attention, "Were you listening to me? Or were you looking at the woman in the red dress?"

Ron felt stunned when Morpheus asked that. It was as if he knew what was going on in his head and so he tried to answer, "I…um…" He stuttered as he tried to look back to see if she was still there.

"Look again." Morpheus said, pointing to what was behind him. Ron looked and saw an agent with a gun pointed at his head. Ron ducked down as Morpheus gave the next command.

"Freeze it!" He called out.

Ron looked up and saw the world around him frozen in place almost like a snapshot. Everything from the birds that flew overhead to the water in the fountains in front of the business buildings, and even the people were frozen in their step. Ron stood back up to see Kim very red-faced and upset with him.

"Pig." She hissed as she punched Ron hard in the shoulder.

Ron looked back at Morpheus and Niobe and the world around him, "This isn't real?" He asked

"No, it's another training program." Morpheus answered, "It is designed to teach you both one simple thing: If you are not one of us, then you are one of them. Agents are out there and they seem to want you, Ronald. We have not seen them in sixteen years, so we know not of what kinds of upgrades they could have been given, which means that you must constantly be on your guard while inside the Matrix. In here, they are everyone and they are no one; they are everywhere, but they are also nowhere. That means that anyone we haven't unplugged; ANYONE who is still hardwired to the Matrix is potentially an Agent."

"We can't do anything about them either, can we?" Kim asked, sounding more than just a little afraid and remembering what happened at Drakken's Upperton lair.

Morpheus sighed and looked wistful before he answered, "Kimberly, I have seen Agents punch through concrete walls. Men have emptied entire clips at them and hit nothing but air. However, their strength and their speed are still based in a world that is built on rules. Because of that, they will never be as strong or as fast as you can be. That goes double for you, Ronald."

There was a moment of silence amongst them, especially with Ron, who looked at the gun that was pointed at his head and then at the face of the Agent. There was something very oddly scary and vaguely familiar about that guy as if Ron had seen his face before, but he tried to shake all the déjà vu off when Morpheus made his next command.

"Now, one last test for you both." He stated as he looked up once again, "Link, load the Jump Program."

Once again, the busy and frozen street of the Agent Program faded away back to the whiteness of the Construct. Then from below their feet, Ron and Kim found themselves falling, well maybe falling isn't the right word, it felt more like they were on solid ground and the cityscape was actually rising to meet them. They found themselves standing on top of a tall skyscraper with the closest building a good hundred feet away at the same exact height. Kim and Ron looked at Morpheus, who was again wearing his mirrored sunglasses that allowed them to see their reflections.

"Now, I want you two to jump to the other building." He stated, pointing to the rooftop on the other side of the street.

Already it seemed ludicrous as Kim came to the edge, leaned over, and saw the great height that they were at. Even though she knew the world around her wasn't real, there was still the very real danger that she could die if she fell from that rooftop or even attempted to make the jump.

"That's impossible!" Kim barked as her voice echoed down into the canyon of glass and steel, "Even with my hair dryer grappler, I couldn't make it."

"I thought nothing was impossible for Kim Possible." Niobe smirked with a smug attitude, earning a glare from Kim. That attitude of Niobe's reminded Kim of someone with the same attitude on her cheerleading squad. An equally bossy girl named Bonnie Rockwaller, who had gone missing a few months back. Of course the squad did somewhat miss her, but not Kim. She didn't miss Bonnie at all. With her gone, it was as if a load had been lifted off of her shoulders.

"Nothing is impossible in the Matrix, my young friends." Morpheus smiled at Kim and Ron, "You both have to let it all go…fear…doubt…and disbelief. Free your mind." With that last sentence, Morpheus gave himself a running start before leaping up high into the air as he made his jump all the way across the gap and landed on the other rooftop with ease as if he was a kid playing hopscotch on the sidewalk.

Ron was amazed by what he had seen that he could only utter one word, "…whoa…"

"You go first, Ron." Niobe nodded.

Ron gulped as he came over to the edge of the building, still feeling that déjà vu in the back of his mind. Just like Kim, he felt the very real danger that he could die in trying to pull off such a stunt. Still, he tried to remind himself that none of it was real. He took a few good steps back, swinging his arms back and forth and building up his own momentum as he tried to give himself a small positive affirmation.

"This shouldn't be too hard." He muttered to himself, "This should be easy…ok…free my mind."

With that affirmation, Ron made his running start. He pushed and pushed all his might into his legs as hard and fast as he could. He came to the ledge and began his jump and he felt just like an Olympic long jumper trying to get as far on the sand as possible, but the ever-present Stoppable family luck finally caught up with him. As Ron was making his jump, his belt buckle came undone and his pants slid down to his knees causing him to trip and tumble in mid air until he started to fall to the asphalt below.

"RON!" Kim cried out, running towards the edge and hoping that in some small way she could save him, "NO!" she yelled as she watched Ron fall further and faster down to the asphalt below. Then, she watched in unusual shock as Ron hit the pavement and literally sank into it until it threw him back up into the air like a rubber band before gravity caught him and brought him back down to the solid asphalt where he made a sickening 'thud' sound.

All of this was witnessed by Kim and Niobe, who were looking at the event over the edge of the building like tourists at Niagara Falls seeing the water pour down into the valley below them.

"He might need a 'lil more work…" Niobe shook her head before looking over at Kim. "Ok, Kimmie, you're next."

Kim nodded, very nervous about whether she could make the jump when Ron couldn't. Still, like Ron before her, she tried a positive affirmation and said the family motto to herself: 'anything's possible for a Possible'; as well as what Morpheus told her: free your mind. She relaxed her whole body, hoping that it may help her in some small way to get to the building on the other side. She then opened her green eyes, focusing only on the other building and not on how far it was to the ground. With the building's edge in sight, she sprinted from her position and ran as hard and as fast as her legs could send her. She reached the ledge and jumped as hard as she could. Her mind was only on landing on the other side. She pushed out all thoughts about landing on the asphalt like Ron did. With her eyes closed, she didn't even notice that she was flying through the air like some kind of superhero. She then felt her feet, ankles, and legs absorb the impact of her hitting the side of the building. Her hands reached out and gripped the edge of the building clinging to it like the kudzu of the deep south before scampering up the side and dropping to the rooftop safe and sound, letting out breaths of relief. She made it.

"Not bad." Morpheus stated as he helped the girl to her feet, "Not bad at all."

Back in the real world, Morpheus, Ron, Kim, and Niobe were all starting to wake up from their training programs. As they did Ron and Kim felt very, very sore. It was as if all those things had actually happened to them even though it was all just digital data that they were interacting with. As the four of them came back to the real world, Link and Ghost were still trying to wrap their minds around what they had just witnessed on the screens.

"She made the jump." Link said in awe and still not believing what his eyes had told him, "No one's ever made the jump on the first try. No one!"

"No." Ghost disagreed with the operator, "One other person made that jump on the very first try."

"Who?" Link asked looking up at Ghost, whose eyes were starting to water as if he was on the verge of crying.

"Trinity." Ghost said in a low wheeze.

Morpheus got out of his jack chair and instructed the two teens, "Go and get a bite to eat, and then get some sleep. We're going to get up bright and early tomorrow morning."

"What for?" Ron asked wondering if there was more training, "We've gotten all the info that Link has on those disk thingies."

"This won't be for training." Morpheus answered, "It's time that you met an old friend of mine."

To Be Continued…


	4. Resurrections Chapter 4

**The Kimmatrix: Matrix Resurrections**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and Turles**

**Chapter 4: Two Sides, Two Paths**

"_The Man who sees both sides of a question is a man who sees nothing at all."_

- Oscar Wilde

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Ron and Kim soon found out how right Link was. The moment that the two of them came back to their room and laid down on their flat mattresses and threadbare pillows, they fell fast asleep. Not a single word was spoken between them, not even the pleasantry of 'Good Night' . They were just too damn tired.

While Kim was sleeping soundly, Ron was still wide awake. He fell onto his mattress still trying to recover from the effects of what had happened in the jump program. The funny thing about Kim's jump was that from his vantage point, Kim looked like she wasn't going to make it. She would have missed the ledge of that building by a few, lousy feet until Ron lent a helping hand. It was only a small shove to help Kim get to the other side and Ron was trying to recover from the feeling of hitting the pavement. It was so real that he could still feel the soreness of the impact on his face as well as the side of his body.

Inside his mind, he even felt himself fall to the ground once again. He groaned as he picked himself off of the cold floor. Once on his feet, he found himself in very strange surroundings. The place looked a lot like the innumerable villain's lairs that he and Kim had been to. He did ask Kim once if they had been in a certain lair before. Kim responded that they all start to look alike after a while.

Ron saw that she was right, after seeing all the different villain lair motifs that adorned that place. There was the high ceiling for the huge death ray, motion activated laser cannons, enormous electronic equipment, and computer banks. Of course, Ron's favorite was the lagoon filled with man-eating piranhas, but that was probably outside the lair. None of that concerned Ron at the moment, because he felt alone, in the sense of not seeing Kim anywhere.

"KP?" He called out, his voice echoing through the lair, "Kim? You here?"

His voice echoed back, showing there was no answer. Compelled to find Kim, Ron started making his way through the lair. In his wandering, he noticed how dark it was. The only light was from all the LCDs on the different machines. With the darkness all around him, the little lights of green, red, and amber looked like eyes belonging to some horrible monster that could devour Ron at any moment. The idea chilled him to the bone more than a brain freeze from an king-size slushy. He pressed on into the heart of the darkness while trying to keep his thoughts away from whatever horrors might be out there in the dark.

Despite all his conscious efforts to avoid those thoughts, he was reminded of his first return to Camp Wannaweep, where he met his old cabin-mate, Gil, who became an amphibious mutant after all his time in the camp's lake, which was polluted by run-off from the nearby Science Camp. Ron's heart began to race more and more as he tried his hardest to not think of that place of evil. Not even the truth of the Matrix could erase the scarring memories of that horrible place.

He must have wandered for hours through that lair, at least that's how long it felt to him. In truth, he didn't know how far into the lair he had wandered. All that he wanted to do was find Kim. As he walked with his arms and hands stretched out, he could feel the hard, smooth surface of the walls on either side of him. Naturally, he deduced that he had come to a hallway, but the strange thing to him was that there were no doors, at least he didn't feel the frames that normally accompanied doors.

Eventually, his eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness to see some measure of what was ahead. It was a light, a soft, yellow light that poured down a fork in the hallway. Seeing the opportunity, Ron raced ahead, hoping for some sign that would bring him to Kim.

Standing under the soft yellow light at the fork in the hallway, Ron carefully examined each hallway. His eyes once again adjusted to the soft yellow lights that illuminated the hallways. The hallway on his left was wide, almost as wide as the dining area of Bueno Nacho. It was well lit with soft, yellow lights above and smaller ones lining the bottom edges like the ones he used to see in movie theaters to light up the walkways. The hallway to his right was narrowly tight, so much so that it seemed that Ron would have to shimmy in sideways to get in. It was also dark, as dark as the rest of the lair that he had to guess his way through.

"Mister Stoppable." A man's voice called out. The voice had sinister quality to it, especially with how it drew Ron's name out and accentuated the S in his name. It just sounded wrong, and sent cold chills down Ron's spine. He looked and from the shadows into the soft yellow light of the wide hallway came a man. He was dressed in a black, three piece suit and a pair of dark rectangular sunglasses. He looked like one of those agents that he and Kim ran into while in Morpheus' Training Program.

"I see you're finally ready to finish my work." The Agent smiled at Ron in such a way that it gave the young teen goose bumps.

"Who are you?" Ron asked as he backed away from the agent. Even though it was his first encounter with that particular agent, Ron was scared, even more than he was of the Agents he met inside the Matrix.

"Do not play games with me, Mister Stoppable." The agent smiled demonically at him, "You know exactly who I am. I am who you were in one life and I am who you were meant to become in this one. I am the face of inevitability. Mister Anderson could not stop me…and you…Mister Stoppable…are proof of that fact."

"No." Ron said as he shook his head, his voice filling with panic, "I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Oh, you do…Mister Stoppable." The agent said with villain-like evilness in his voice as he came closer to Ron, "Let me…refresh…your memory."

As the Agent finished his halting sentence, Ron cried out in pain. Something had pierced his chest. He looked down to see that the Agent had plunged his fingers into Ron's chest as if he was about to tear out the boy's heart. From the impacted fingers, Ron saw a dark, silvery liquid that began to spread like a freakish infection. It felt cold to Ron, as if he were being submersed in the coldest water on Earth. The kind of cold that is said will kill a man in less than two minutes. It felt like he was dying.

"Back off!" Another voice demanded.

Ron looked away from the Agent's attack and saw a man emerge from the dark and narrow hallway. He was dressed in gray, tattered clothes, much like what Ron was wearing when he was out in the real world. The man looked like he was injured, as there were purple burns all around his face or at least around the areas of his eyes, which were covered by a red bandana.

"It's not your choice!" The tattered man shouted at the Agent as he lunged forward, grabbing Ron's arm and pulling him away. His pull yanked the Agent's fingers from Ron's chest, allowing the infection to dissipate. Ron started to feel better as the Tattered Man pulled him towards the narrow hallway.

"It's not yours either…Mister Anderson!" The Agent growled as he lunged for Ron's other arm and pulled him in the direction of the wide path. All the while Ron felt as if he was a rope in a tug-o-war between these two men. Until he thought to himself, 'why should anyone dictate my path? That's my choice!'

"No!" Ron cried out, shaking his head, and trying to pull himself away from both the Tattered Man and the Agent, "Stop it! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! LEAVE ME ALONE!"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" Ron cried out, sitting bolt upright in his cot and breathing raggedly. He looked around the gray, rusted walls of his quarters onboard the _Nebuchadnezzar II_ and realized that it was just a dream, a silly, stupid, little dream. He reached up and wiped the sweat off his forehead before he looked over to his right to find that Kim was still asleep. He let out a quiet sigh of relief that his outcry didn't wake her up.

He brought his feet over the edge of the bed and stood up on the metal floor. He endured the stinging iciness of the floor on his bare feet as he padded his way over to Kim's bed. He saw that the blanket was only covering half of her; she was trembling from the chilly temperature of the _Neb II_'s interior. Ron knelt down, leaned over, and stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. He had to admit, looking at the red shadow on Kim's head, that he did miss the red hair, much like how he missed his own hair, but he told himself that it would grow back.

Seeing how cold Kim was, Ron reached down, pulled Kim's sheets back over her shoulders, then took one of the thickest from his bed, and laid it on top of Kim, tucking her in snugly before climbing back into his own bed. As he was lying there in that makeshift bed, he stared at the ceiling thinking back on his dream, or perhaps nightmare would be more accurate. There was just something about it that he couldn't simply let go of. Normally, in any dream or nightmare, they're easy to brush off because it's just a dream and not real, but his view on what was real and what was not had been shaken very recently, and there was just _something_ about that nightmare. He couldn't let go. It had too deep of an effect on him to allow any sleep for Ron that night.

He just kept thinking about it, the two men at that fork in the hallway pulling him and tugging him in different directions. He pondered upon the meaning as well as the questions of that nightmare. Who were those men? Where did they come from? What interest did they have in him? And most of all, why?

"Maybe this friend of Morpheus' will be able to help me." Ron thought to him as he curled up into a ball on his bed, took the last blanket he had for himself, and held it tightly over him for warmth in a cold world. He closed his eyes, softly hoping that the nightmare wouldn't return to him.

Ron didn't know if he had dreamt or not. All he remembered was falling asleep and the next thing he knew, Morpheus' voice was whispering into his ear.

"Good morning, Ronald."

The sound of Morpheus' voice at a distance of less than two inches from Ron's ear took him so much by surprise that Ron literally leapt out of his bed and fell to the metallic floor with a thud. Ron had recovered quickly to turn his attention directly at Morpheus.

"Morpheus!" Ron shouted, "Haven't you heard of knocking? What if KP had been changing clothes or something?"

Morpheus never seemed scared or phased by any of Ron's yelling. He simply looked back at him calmly to say, "It is fifteen after eleven and, had you not been in such a deep slumber, you would have known that she had changed her clothes, quite possibly in your presence, and left thirty minutes ago. Not that you would have peeked as you did in the sparring program yesterday." Morpheus finished and stepped towards the door, smiling at the blush that was covering Ron's face. Yet before he left Ron, he turned back to say, "Get dressed, we jack into the Matrix in thirty minutes. Niobe and Kim are already waiting in the Construct."

Ron nodded and quickly pulled up his boots over the ragged legs of his pants and followed Morpheus up to the main deck.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

In New York City, under the fabricated blue sky, the team from the _Neb II_ had entered the Matrix. It was in a part of the city that was run down and used up. The kind of place in a city that looked as though it needed to be bulldozed to the ground to make way for something new. All the buildings had broken windows, litter was flying everywhere, and the air all around felt muddy and polluted like a dirty lake. It was there in the center of that place, at an old apartment building, a singular, black phone began to ring. It was an old, rotary model that must have taken nearly a minute to dial a simple number. Above the outdated phone was a solitary light that shined down upon it like a spotlight on a rock star.

From the shadows came a hand that reached for the receiver, it was picked up and slowly brought it up to Morpheus' ear. Morpheus like Ghost and the confused Ron Stoppable behind him was dressed differently than what Ron had seen before. Ghost in his casual, tie-less suit and square sunglasses, Morpheus with his alligator skin coat that was v-cut to show off his black suit shirt, and silver tie, while Ron whose suit was black with a red, button up shirt, yellow tie, and oval shaped sunglasses.

"We're in." Morpheus spoke into the receiver, after which he hung up the phone. He looked around, seeing who was missing and asked, "Where are Niobe and Kimberly?"

With Ron inside the Matrix, he could see, sense and feel things that were going on all around him. All he had to do was simply look and he saw it: the code of the Matrix, all that green, garbled text flowing in different directions all over the surfaces of the room, and, apparently, he could see through walls as he saw two feminine figures moving on the other side of the adjacent wall.

"They're in the next room." Ron reported to Morpheus, pointing towards the door that led to it. He consciously changed his sight back to real world vision with textures, colors, tints, shades, hues, and light.

The door that Ron pointed to opened a second later, with Niobe walking out and looking at Morpheus, Ghost, and Ron. She was dressed in her imitation, red, alligator skin suit, and had her hair done up into small 'nodes' all over her scalp.

"And they say girls take forever to get ready," she smiled as she cracked the joke at the men's expense. She went on to explain, "Kimmie desperately needed a new look, so we've been playing around with a few ideas in the Construct."

"Oh?" Morpheus asked, raising his eyebrows at Niobe's report.

"See for yourself." Niobe said as she went back to the door, leaned in, and called, "Kim? They're ready for you."

Kim stepped out into the room, and she had such a stunning visage to her that Ron couldn't help letting his mouth hang open slightly before mouthing the word, "Wow." Even Rufus wiggled out of Ron's coat pocket, got a look, and chirped his own "wow" at Kim. She was wearing a pair of red, reflective, oval sunglasses. She wore the long, smooth, red-leather trench coat that Ron gave her. Underneath it she wore a skintight, leather vest that zipped up the front and stopped just below Kim's bottom rib to show off her smooth, perfect midriff. Matching the vest was a skintight, leather skirt that hung low on her hips and showed off the curves of her lower half as it led Ron's eyes down to her pair of black (Or onyx if they were from Club Banana) boots that buckled up to just above her calves.

Kim took off her red, mirrored sunglasses and looked at Ron.

"What's wrong?" She asked of her best friend, "Don't like it?" She asked in that same pleading tone that she used when she made her trademark 'Puppy-dog Pout'.

"No! I mean, 'Yes'." Ron squeaked, his voice shifting in his pubescence from high pitched to low pitch. He cleared his voice and shook his head, "You look…great…er…good…um…nice. Yeah, that's it! Nice."

"Good." Kim smiled, "Just like Club Banana only I didn't have to spend a thing. By the way Ron,"

"Yeah, KP?" Ron asked nervously, wondering if Kim was going to be mad at him for staring.

Kim came over to Ron, brought up her hands, and fixed his collar.

"You don't look that bad either." She said as she fixed up his tie as well and then put her sunglasses back on. Ron coughed and mumbled into his shirt as she did this.

"If you two are quite finished." Morpheus spoke up, his commanding position showing through, "It is time for us to head out. Niobe and Ghost, you two wait here."

Niobe and Ghost nodded.

"Kimberly and Ronald, come with me." He ordered as he headed out the door, and, without asking, Kim and Ron followed Morpheus down through the building and out to the street where there was a black Dodge Charger waiting for them. The two teens looked at the car for a moment before Morpheus climbed into the drivers' seat, while Kim took shotgun and Ron got into the back. At this, Ron couldn't help feeling resentment. He thought to himself, 'Morpheus thinks I'm the seventh One and I'm still just the sidekick.'

The Charger drove through the streets of New York City, coming out of the rundown areas, over bridges, and into the main part of Manhattan, as the people, stores, and restaurants passed them, the disbelief was still with Ron and Kim.

"I still can't believe it…" Kim said, softly marveling at everything she was seeing out the window and knowing the truth. "All of this…none of it was real…at all."

"It is as real as you make it, Kimberly." Morpheus said, sounding like an ancient sage as he continued to look down the road.

"Whoa…" Ron uttered as he looked out the window with Rufus climbing up onto his shoulder to look out with him.

"What is it, Ron?" Kim asked looking into the backseat.

"I used to eat there." He pointed to a Chinese Restaurant called The New Hong Kong that passed them by.

Rather confused, Kim looked at Ron and retold the truth, "Ron, you used to eat at Bueno Nacho and what's more, you've never even been to this city."

"I know that." Ron answered back gently, knowing the truth as well as Kim did, "It's just that I have memories of my own life…and I also have those memories that I feel were mine, but at the same time they aren't. What does that mean?"

"Weird much?" Kim asked sarcastically with a cocked eyebrow.

"It simply means that the Matrix cannot tell you who you are." Morpheus answered.

"But an Oracle can?" Kim asked.

Morpheus smiled as he recalled the same discussion between Neo and Trinity. "That…" he said, keeping his smile, "Is a little different. But one thing you should know about the Matrix. This is the most crucial lesson."

"Oookay…." Kim said as she got that confused look on her face like a kid being asked a question in class that they don't know the answer to.

"Even though none of this is real" Morpheus began, "your mind makes it real. If you are hurt inside the Matrix, you are hurt outside as well. If you are killed inside the Matrix, you die in the real world as well."

"The body cannot live without the mind." Ron said on impulse, then felt confused about why he said that. He then looked to Rufus who simply shrugged at him.

"Oh really?" Kim asked Ron, a playful smile growing on her lips, "How does that explain you? Or do you not go by the same rules?"

Slightly peeved, Ron glared slightly peeved at the back of Kim's seat. He knew that Kim was implying that he was mindless, but then again could someone mindless come up with something like the Naco? Ron smiled at his own creativity as he looked down at the Naco on his belt.

"If I am correct," Morpheus added, trying to hold back the growing smirk on his face as if he were about to laugh, "That could very well be the case."

Ron folded his arms as the car started to pass by some apartment buildings. As it came to one particular building, the Charger began to slow down. Ron looked up at the highly compact apartment complex and the déjà vu came back again like a wave wanting to drown him.

"We're here." Morpheus stated as he climbed out of the car.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Morpheus walked ahead of the two teens in that relaxed stance of his with his arms behind his back. The three of them passed by the doors to a narrow foyer, which was filthy beyond belief. There was graffiti everywhere, bearing different people's names like Neo, Trinity, Mouse, Switch, Cipher, Apoc, slogans like the end is coming, political and religious, one-liner soap-boxes like Only Jesus can save you and John 3:16 written in multi-colored fluorescence. While at one end of the foyer, across from the elevator was a small wooden bench. All around it were black bags of putrid smelling garbage. Yet sitting amongst all this garbage and filth, like a pleasant smelling eye of a rancid smelling hurricane, was a short, Asian man wearing an open, white, Kung Fu uniform shirt, circular sunglasses, and dark pants. He was just sitting there on that wooden bench, cross-legged sipping tea from a cup with the kettle sitting next to him as if his situation was as normal as could be.

Ron's gazed at this man with his Matrix code-vision. He already knew that something was very different about him, yet it wasn't confirmed until he saw the code of him. It was very different from the green code that was everywhere else. This man's code was yellow, almost golden, and shimmering as if the man was made of sunlight. Ron's eyes shifted back to their normal state as the man looked up at the trio entering.

"Welcome, Morpheus." He smiled, "You're right on time."

Ron and Kim came forward, "Who are you?" Kim asked.

"My name is Seraph and I know of you two. Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable, your reputations have reached the Oracle." The Asian man introduced himself as he stood up to meet Kim and Ron. He bowed to Kim and he even went over to shake Ron's hand.

"Yo ha, bro-ha." Ron gave his traditional greeting, smiling politely as Seraph took his hand.

Seraph shook Ron's hand and as he did, he felt a slight jolt. Something that he had not felt in a very long, long time; it felt conflicting. On the one hand, the presence that Seraph felt from this boy named Ron Stoppable was friendly and familiar, but at the same time it felt menacing and evil. It was the menacing and evil part that sent him into automatic defense mode. He reeled back and threw a punch at Ron's chest.

Ron went flying backwards and smashed against the wall.

"Hey, what'd I do?" Ron asked as he got up.

Nothing was said as Seraph made his next attack on Ron. He started with a few kicks while Ron was still down. Yet, Ron felt it coming and used his Matrix-bending powers to lift himself off the ground and make a small flip over Seraph's head. With that, Ron turned and made his attack against Seraph. The attacks between the two of them went back and forth while Kim and Morpheus simply stood by, watching the two of them. To their eyes, it seemed as if Seraph and Ron were moving at the speed of sight. For the next few minutes, the two combatants were just torsos with blurs for arms and legs until each blocked a direct attack from the other that pushed them a few feet apart. With the distance between them, Ron came back to his fighting stance.

Seraph, on the other hand, stood still for a moment. During his fight with Ron, he felt the familiarity of the previous One and, at the same time, he still felt that menacing evil that dwelt within his spirit. It was like a fetid smell that no one wants to mention.

"Good." Seraph smiled, "I apologize, but I had to be sure."

"Sure of what?" Ron asked very confused.

"That you are who the Oracle said you were." Seraph answered.

"You could have just asked him." Kim protested, "Would have saved us a lot of time."

"No." Seraph shook his head as he smiled, "You do not truly know someone until you have fought them."

"Another Yoda." Kim muttered to herself as the four of them went to the elevator.

The elevator ride up to the seventh floor was a silent one. Ron was still reeling from all the déjà vu he was experiencing, the building, that man in the white Kung Fu shirt, and the elevator. He had heard a lot of times on the Discovery Channel as well as a few other sources that amnesia victims go through the same thing. Sometimes being in certain places triggers memories or feelings that he or she had been there before. Even though Ron had realized the truth about the world around him and everything about it, there were still gaps in the truth.

Once the elevator stopped on the seventh floor, both Seraph and Morpheus walked out with Kim and Ron following shortly behind. The hallway was very much different from the foyer they were in before, long with fluorescent lights dotting the ceiling, and the walls and floors were green, not Matrix green, but more like a pale green the same shade as faded lime. The color was expected. The fact that there were no doors was not. Not a single door could be seen along the walls

"All right, I'm officially freaked out now." Kim whispered to Ron.

"You and me both, KP." Ron answered back.

The strangeness of the door-less hallway began to grow over the next five minutes, and to Kim it felt like a very long walk from one end of the Middleton mall to the other…the long way until they saw something on the right side of the hall; it stood out like an oasis in the middle of the Sahara; it was a frame for a door.

"I'll tell you what I told Neo, Ron." Morpheus began, turning to the blonde haired teen, "I can only show you the door; you're the one that has to walk through it."

"Do you think it'd be possible to cut back on the Yoda trip?" Kim asked, sounding very annoyed by all the metaphorical and cryptic messages.

"No, he's right, Kim." Ron said, the seriousness coming over him again. Ron looked at the door, with Rufus on his shoulder. His hand reached out for it, and, like so many cases before in the past, Ron was expecting something to happen… there was something amazing to be said for the simple act of turning the doorknob. Something did happen, the door opened before Ron could even get a good grip on the doorknob.

As the door opened, there stood a young African-American woman dressed in a white nightgown. She had long curly hair that came down to her shoulders, and her brown eyes held a softness that could calm a dementor. She also held a small tray in her hands containing a plate of cookies and a small, white cup.

"Seraph." She said looking at the group, "Morpheus, Kim, Ron. Right on time, as always. I'll take you to see the Oracle, but I have to take care of my little brother first. Please, come in. Seraph, please return to the foyer."

Seraph bowed to the young woman and the trio and then took his leave.

"It was a pleasure to meet you, once again." Seraph said to Ron as he headed back down the long, door-less hallway back to the elevator.

The trio walked through the only door in the entire hallway, which closed behind them and they followed the young woman through the narrow hallway of the apartment. Behind them was a small bench that seemed as though it belonged in a doctor's waiting room.

"Morpheus, have a seat." The young woman instructed to Morpheus, hinting to the small bench, "Kim and Ron, please come with me."

Ron and Kim watched as Morpheus took the seat while they followed the young woman. The three of them didn't go very far, just to a door in a recessed alcove off the narrow hallway. Holding the tray in one hand, she knocked on the door.

"Hey, bro." She called softly as she made her entrance, "I've got your snacks ready."

"Cool, be there in a second, sis." A muffled voice called out from the other side of the door.

Kim and Ron instantly looked at one another.

"That voice…" The two of them uttered in unison as they looked back at the slowly opening door. The two of them already had expectations about who was fixing to come out. All their expectations were met when they saw a short, curly haired, blue clothed, African-American boy walk out and receive the tray from the young woman.

"Hmmm." The boy said, "Sugar cookies! My favorite!"

"Wade?" Kim asked.

Wade looked over at Kim and Ron, who stared at him in awe for a moment. He, however, looked at them with a pleasant surprise on their face as if he was expecting the two of them. He held the tray in one hand and waved at them.

"Oh, hey guys!" He said very happily, "I wondered where you two disappeared to. So, how's the outside?"

"Um…" Ron forced out while Kim stood beside him, "Wade. We finally get to meet you in person! Wow!"

"Yeah." Wade agreed, "I figured it would happen sooner or later."

"Are you the Oracle?" Ron asked, stepping back just a step.

"Me?" Wade laughed loudly, but was careful not to drop his milk and cookies, "The Oracle? No way. That's my mom. I'm just a Search Engine."

"A Search Engine?" Ron asked, "So that means that you're not human, you're a part of the Matrix."

"Yeah, that's about it." Wade answered.

"Freaky." Kim blinked.

"Super freaky." Rufus squeaked in as he popped out of Ron's coat pocket.

"Well," Wade shrugged, "I guess mom wants to talk to you both, and I need to get back to work." He turned and was about to head back into his room before he turned around to face his friends again, "Nice seeing you two, by the way; really made the day a little brighter."

"Never thought I'd see the day when I'd meet Wade in person." Ron said to himself.

"The Oracle will see Ron Stoppable first." The young woman said to the pair.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Ron passed through a veil of wooden beads to the kitchen past the family room where Kim was left to wait on the couch. He pushed the beads out of the way, and as he stepped in, he caught the warm, sweet aroma of something baking in the oven. He looked around, seeing how aged the kitchen was, as well as how green it was too; faded green paint and patterned wall paper, green just seemed to be a major color theme in the Matrix. There were old pieces of kitchenware and furniture that looked as though they came out of the seventies. Over by the stove was an old woman with black hair that was starting to show signs of age with a few stray gray hairs and wearing an old, green dress. Ron couldn't see her face and he was about to announce his presence when the woman answered for him.

"You don't need to introduce yourself." She said never turning away from the stove; her voice was very soothing almost like a grandmother to her grandson, "I know your name is Ron Stoppable, and I am the Oracle."

The Oracle turned around to face Ron and show her well-worn face with a few wrinkles, narrow brown eyes, a pair of glasses hanging from a gold chain on her neck, and a warm smile on her face. All her features seemed so grandmother-like and so was her tone when she addressed Ron.

"Not exactly what you were expecting was it?" She asked, still smiling away, "Almost ready." She got up from the stool in front of the stove to put on a pair of oven mitts.

"Smells good, doesn't it?" She asked, reveling in the sweet and warm aromas.

"Oh yeah." Ron smiled, "I still can't get over that I finally met Wade in person."

The Oracle took out the baking sheet of cookies and set them on a nearby counter, "Oh yes, Wade. Quite the prodigy; has my intuition and the Architect's brilliance."

"The who?" Ron asked.

"Never mind that now." The Oracle advised, "There are other things to worry about and don't worry about the vase while we're at it."

"What vase?" Ron asked as he instinctively looked around the room. Before he knew it, his elbow had hit something. He quickly looked, and saw a blackish-green vase fall to the floor shattering into pieces, leaving water and flowers strewn all over the linoleum floor.

"That vase." The Oracle answered Ron's question.

Ron quickly looked from the smashed vase to the Oracle, "Oh, my bad." He apologized quickly.

"I said don't worry about it." The Oracle said as she took off her yellow apron, "Looks like you've forgotten quite a lot since we last met. You should be feeling some major déjà vu right now, so I'm going to have to re-teach you a few things."

"But…how'd you know about the vase?" Ron asked with the déjà vu coming from the back of his mind at full force like a rhino charging head long into his thoughts.

She smiled, bringing the cookies to a clean plate, "Oh, what's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?"

Ron scratched his head for a second, "I think my noodle is long past baked." He said, feeling very confused.

"Well, let's have a seat." She smiled as she brought the plate of cookies in one hand and her pack of cigarettes and lighter in the other.

The two of them sat down and Ron didn't know how to deal with such a situation. It really did feel like he was in the presence of an Oracle, who could predict every move and decision he would make. Looking down at the old nineteen-seventies style table, Ron felt the words forming in his head and he was about to start, but the Oracle beat him to it.

"I know you've been having weird dreams, Ron." She said, almost sounding like a doctor with the perfect beside manner, "We'll get to that later, but first let's get your abilities out of the way."

Ron nodded slowly feeling relieved, as if the Oracle had told him exactly what he needed to hear.

"I really am sorry to have to tell you this, kiddo, but you are not who you're supposed to be. Then again, who is nowadays?"

"What?" Ron asked, feeling the confusion twist even more in his mind and stomach like a psychological pretzel.

"Your natural personality was overridden and copied over on the very day you were born." The Oracle stated. Her voice sounded very serious, but still had that soothing, grandmother quality, "Nonetheless, you were born to be someone who should never see the light of day."

Taking it all in, Ron felt the confusion starting to drown him, making him wish for answers that weren't there. As he took all this in, Rufus popped out of his coat pocket and came to the table. The little mole rat looked at his life-long friend, wondering what was wrong and if he could help. Rufus' worries were set aside when the Oracle started to pet him.

"So…" Ron began as he looked up from Rufus to the Oracle, "Who am I?"

"You are who you are, and that's the important thing." She reached over, took the plate of cookies, and held it up to Ron, "Cookie?"

The déjà vu registered once again inside Ron's head and he couldn't stop himself from asking, "Do you know if I'm going to take one already?"

"I wouldn't be much of an Oracle if I didn't, now would I?" The Oracle responded.

"But, if you already know, then how can I make a choice?" Ron questioned again, feeling confusion coupled with this sense of insane déjà vu swirling inside his head.

"Because you've already made the choice. Now you have to try to understand it.", The Oracle explained. Ron's hunger overtook his curiosity and he dove into the plate of fresh-baked cookies. One after the other, the cookies vanished faster than anything the Oracle had ever seen. Even Rufus managed to get one. Then again, who could blame Ron? After spending a few weeks eating that white paste; anything looks good, even if it was all just in his head. As soon as the plate was empty, the Oracle looked to Ron with a rather surprised look on her face.

"Well, your appetite has grown." She mused, "Last time, I had to practically force you into just having one."

"What?" Ron asked with a full mouth.

"You'll understand later on." The Oracle set aside what she said earlier as she came to the things on Ron's mind, "Right now I think that you have more urgent matters bothering you, right?"

"Yes." Ron said slowly as if thinking that she made a lucky guess.

The Oracle took a cigarette out and light it up, "Tell me." She began as she took a small puff on the cigarette, "In your dreams. Do you feel like you are being pulled in two directions?"

Ron gazed at her with his eyes widening in shock about her accuracy. It was as if she had been reading his mind or had been there in his dream. Though Ron used a little logic for once in his life: since his brain was connected to the Matrix, then maybe she was literally reading his mind.

The Oracle smiled widely, "I thought so." She took another puff of her cigarette, "I'm sorry kid, but I have bad news. You have two sides to you, and with each side, there is a path. You have the potential to be a hero beyond any the world has ever known inside the Matrix or out, but you also have the potential to destroy everything and enjoy every second of it. Unfortunately, that isn't the bad news."

"Uh-oh." Rufus shuddered as he scurried back into Ron's pocket.

Ron gulped and shook his head, "I'm not sure if I want to know the bad news…"

"You have two roads, but you have no say in the path you will take." The Oracle stated seriously as she placed her cigarette in the handy ash tray, got up from her chair, walked over, and looked at the teen, "Your guide will lead you down the path you are meant to take."

Ron looked up at the Oracle in confusion, "Who is my guide?" He asked, "How will I find him? Or will he find me?"

"She has already found you, and you, her." The Oracle smiled.

Ron scratched his head, "Her? Who?"

"You'll know who when the time is right, but not in here." The Oracle said as she laid her old finger on Ron's forehead and then brought it down to his chest, "You'll know it right here."

"That's not very helpful…" Ron said with a cocked eyebrow and then reached up to rub his temples, "In fact…I think I have a headache now."

"That's all I have for you right now." The Oracle apologized to Ron, "I'm sorry that I couldn't give you better news, kiddo. It is one thing I hate: giving good people bad news."

Ron got up from the table, the confusion coming down on his shoulders like sandbags. He didn't even look up at the Oracle when all of it had sunk in and began to weigh him down like a pair of concrete shoes bringing him to the bottom of a muddy lake. He turned to walk out the bead veiled doorway before he heard the Oracle call for him again.

"On your way out," She instructed, "Could you send in Kim for me?"

Ron turned to look at the Oracle once again with his brown puppy-dog eyes and silently nodded. Before he headed out the door, the Oracle said one last thing to him.

"Sorry again, Ron, but I can assure you of this much."

"What?" Ron asked his voice very downhearted.

"Whichever path you take, Kim is going to be right there by your side the whole way." The Oracle told him with a smile as if everything that she told Ron was Pandora's Box and that there was still Hope at the bottom of it all.

Ron smiled weakly, but remembering that Kim would be there with him all the way made him just a bit happier, and with that, he smiled brightly before he walked out of the kitchen.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

A few minutes later, Kim Possible slid into the Oracle's kitchen, easing out of the beads that covered the doorway. She moved almost like a wild animal coming into new territory, being cautious with each step she took. Some would say that she was being paranoid but Kim wasn't one to take unnecessary risks, especially with all the truth that she'd learned in the past few days. Her eyes came upon the Oracle sitting at the kitchen table.

"Such a lovely young lady" The Oracle smiled, "I can see why he likes you."

"Who?" Kim asked curiously.

"Not too bright, though."

"I resent that." Kim said going into automatic defense.

"No need to be defensive, Kim." The Oracle smiled, "You'll know what I mean sometime in the future."

Kim brought her mind back to the matter at hand. She wondered how this woman knew her name, and then she thought that that Ron must have told her. She narrowed her emerald eyes at the old woman.

"Oracle, right?" She asked, "What's the sitch? What'd you tell Ron? He seemed pretty…shook up."

"I'll leave that for him to know. He'll tell when he's good and ready to share. After all, you've shared everything with each other since you were four, even private things that you didn't want to know. I'm sure you haven't forgotten some of your early puberty conversations." The Oracle winked up at Kim.

Kim already began to blush because she didn't forget any of those conversations that she and Ron had. It was roughly between grade school and junior high when Ron and Kim began to change within themselves. Kim did admit to Ron that she noticed her breasts were growing, while Ron wasn't at all shy about telling Kim about his pubic hairs. He talked about it as if he had won a gold medal at the Olympics. As she blushed brightly at this, Kim looked at the Oracle as she sat down in front of supposed senior citizen.

"You're good." She smiled, "Not even Wade knows about that."

The Oracle shrugged, "I only know enough."

"So," Kim began nervously, wondering about what she would hear, "What do you want to…prophesize about me?"

"Oh, that can wait a few minutes." The Oracle shirked, "Right now, I have to tell you the importance of your current mission."

The minute Kim heard that, she felt the blood drain from her face, her mouth felt dry, and the cold sweats started to flush over her.

"My mission…" She uttered through a dry cracked voice, "I had forgotten all about it…"

The Oracle reached over and touched Kim's hand. Her old, leathery skin felt quite soothing to her, almost like the Oracle was trying to calm her like her mother did when she was younger, before she became as strong and independent as she was after she met Ron.

"Don't worry about it, Kim." The Oracle said soothingly, "It might be comforting to know that your release from the Matrix was part of your mission. As a way to prepare you."

"For what?" Kim asked.

"For the enemies that you will face down the path." The Oracle said as if she was prophesizing, "But the point is that you cannot allow Drakken to use the machine that he stole from the Merovingian. At all costs, he cannot be allowed to use it."

"What is it, anyway?" Kim inquired, brushing some of her hair away from her face, "The Merovingian never told exactly what it was. Just went on his cause and effect trip."

The Oracle nodded, "That's him for you. What I can tell you about it is this: It can be used to revive something that shouldn't be." She paused for a moment and stated, "You've done a lot of good, you and Ron both. I can't begin to tell you how many lives have been saved. I know that you've doubted the good you've done since learning the truth. I can tell you that it may be digital, but the lives you've saved and the good you've done has been as real as Morpheus' obsession with shaving his head."

Kim gave a small giggle with that comparison the Oracle made.

"Don't stop the hero thing now, Kim." The Oracle advised, "With what Morpheus has taught you and will teach you, the tools at your disposal for helping others will be limitless."

"I'll remember that." Kim smiled.

"And now, as you put it, prophesizing." The Oracle smiled as she lit up another cigarette. Kim leaned forward with great interest in what the Oracle would say next and stayed deathly quite as the Oracle began, "You've helped a lot of people in your life, Kim, but very soon someone very close, the one you love…really love…will need your help…desperately so and will ask for it. He'll need you not only for physical…but emotional support.

"Who is he?" Kim asked, thinking of all the men in her life that she could love and who would really need her. She tried to confirm what she knew with the Oracle, "Josh? Will? Hirotaka? Brick? Or even the off chance…Junior?" There were so many people that she helped inside the Matrix that it seemed like the possibilities were endless, and with her heart in her throat, Kim waited to hear the answer from the Oracle's lips.

"None of the above." The Oracle stated.

Kim gawked, still wondering who it could be if it not the ones she named. They seemed to be the most likely candidates in Kim's mind as she mulled over it, but if not Josh, who was at the top of her list, then who? Kim snapped out of her thoughts.

"Those are the only guys I know that are my type." Kim refuted, still digging further into her mind to find the right answer, "Who else is there? Have I even met him, yet?"

"Yes. You know him very well." The Oracle nodded as she reached up and flicked the teen's nose, "He's right there, child."

"How will I know?"

The Oracle looked upward and pointed to an area over Kim's head, "Do you know what that means?" She asked.

Kim looked behind her to where the Oracle was pointing, and there above the door was a small, wooden cut out. It was a rectangular piece with dark brown, curved lines around its edge and in the center were carved and painted green letters. Kim knew what it was from the Latin class that she and Ron signed up for.

"It's Latin." The Oracle answered her own question.

"Nosce te ipsum." Kim pronounced.

"Very good." The Oracle nodded, "It means Know Thyself. I do wish that just once I wouldn't give a good person bad news." She signed as she shook her head slightly, "I'm afraid you'll know exactly who he is the minute your time among the living is up, and you'll hate yourself for not seeing it sooner to really enjoy what many men and women never get a chance to experience: true love."

The Oracle got up and moved slowly over to one of the cabinets.

"Maybe you'll get another chance in your next life, who knows?" She said as she brought over a small piece of candy to Kim. It was a red mint given out at restaurants, "Candy? I'd offer you a cookie, but your friend ate them all."

"That's Ron for you." Kim smiled, "No matter what the situation, he never loses his appetite." She reached out and took the piece of candy from the Oracle's hand, "Thank you." she said, but she couldn't help sitting at that table and thinking about all the things she had been told. She got up from the table, placed the candy into her pocket, and was about to turn and leave the kitchen when she was stopped.

"For all it's worth, Kim." The Oracle spoke up, "You and Ron have both proved to me that Neo wasn't a one time fluke, and that there are people that give the human race a reason for existing. You are both fine champions."

Kim's cheeks blushed slightly as she tried to be modest about her exploits.

"No big." She smiled, "I just do what I can."

The Oracle walked up to Kim and hugged her. Kim received a strong aroma of both acrid cigarette smoke and just-baked cookies. At first, Kim didn't know what to do, but there was something comforting in that smell and the warmth that came with it, even though Kim knew that it was digital. It felt like that same grandmother feeling, the kindness and age that went with it. With the Oracle's arms around her, Kim hugged back.

"Don't stop what you do, Kim." The Oracle whispered, "Don't ever stop."

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

A moment later, after all the prophesizing and advice the Oracle gave to Kim, the two of them walked out into the family room where Ron and Morpheus sat in waiting on the old couch. The two of them weren't even talking to each other. They looked as though they had a lot on their minds, which was understandable for Ron, though Morpheus was always the strong, silent type when he himself wasn't spitting out prophecies.

"Morpheus." The Oracle called.

Morpheus stood up like a soldier at attention and waiting for orders from his commanding officer.

"These two have an important mission." She stated, "Drakken must be stopped; can I expect you to give them your full support?"

"Without question." Morpheus said as he reached up to put on his sunglasses.

The Oracle smiled, "Very good. It would be smart to find out more about what Doctor Drakken has taken before you can really go after him." She glanced at both Ron and Kim, "I'm sure you can help the kids here persuade the Merovingian to be more helpful. If not, I'm sure what you've taught them will."

Morpheus smiled as did Kim and Ron, all three of them thinking back to that time in the sparring program when they tested out their new gravity-defying moves.

The Oracle smiled as she went back to her kitchen and the trio headed over to the front door. There was a quiet silence amongst them as they were preparing to leave. Morpheus reached for the door handle when another door burst open. The trio turned to see what had happened and saw Wade running, rather sluggishly because of his pudginess, down the hall.

"Kim!" He called out to her, wheezing as he reached her; he panted as he spoke, even though it was a short distance from his door to Kim's position. Then again for a kid who spends the majority of his time in his room, he probably didn't get a lot of exercise, "I'm…glad you're…still here." He wiped the sweat off of his forehead as he looked up at Kim.

"Ok, Wade, just breathe. Now what's the sitch?" Kim asked as she walked over to the exhausted Wade.

As she did, the Oracle appeared at the end of the hall, "What's all the commotion, son?"

"Monkey Fist." Wade answered both ladies, "He's holding some diplomats hostage downtown."

That news sent chills and then a hot flash of adrenaline through Morpheus. He knew what was to happen on that day in downtown New York. He came up behind Kim and looked down at Wade from behind his mirror-like sunglasses.

"The Council Meeting." He stated.

"Oh dear." The Oracle sighed.

"Half of the diplomats are freed." Morpheus stated, sounding a little worried but then a little calmer when he realized something, "If memory serves, Monkey Fist is a martial artist. The Council Members should be able to handle him."

Ron looked up at Morpheus, "Hairy Hands isn't really the problem." He said, using his knowledge of past experiences with the self-proclaimed Monkey Master, "It's his army of Monkey Ninjas that you gotta worry about; he usually has them in full force."

Morpheus glanced at Ron, seeing a flash of Neo over that boyish exterior. He then brought himself back to the situation at hand.

"Can you see them, Ronald?" he asked.

Ron looked, his vision changed from normal to the jade tinted code of the Matrix. Through it, he could see and feel everything in the Matrix as if the world was just an extension of all the senses in his body. He searched and found the unique code, a code that Ron felt could belong only to one man: Monkey Fist. He brought his vision back to where he was, changed it back to normal, and nodded to Morpheus, confirming his question.

The Oracle smiled once again, "He is the One, Morpheus." she said, her announcement being heard by everyone in the hallway. Kim and Ron snapped their heads at the old woman, wondering if she was really serious about what she was saying. Her smile said it all, while Morpheus simply looked at her.

"He is?" He asked, still looking at Ron and wondering too if she was right, "Are you sure, Oracle?" He questioned with a twinge of worried concern in his voice.

"Yes." The Oracle answered, sounding very sure of herself, "He has the gift, and he has the purpose, though he does not yet see it."

"What do you mean?" Ron protested, "And why didn't you say this to me earlier?"

"She told you exactly what you needed to hear, Ronald." Morpheus explained rather cryptically.

"Huh?" Ron asked as he scratched his head.

"You're not like the others, kiddo." The Oracle continued as she came up behind Wade and placed her hand on his shoulder, "Your destiny is not like any before you, but you are definitely the One."

"Booyah for the Ron-man!" Ron cheered for himself as he broke out into a miniature dance.

"Back to the mission." Wade spoke up, "You three should hurry to the Council Hall, but you'll be lucky if you get there by tomorrow with the traffic out there."

"Then we'll just call in a favor for a helicopter ride." Kim suggested, knowing it had worked several times before.

"I believe there's a better way." The Oracle said as she turned and walked down the hall to another door. She reached up and knocked on one of them, "Sati?"

"Sati?" Ron thought to himself, the déjà vu going full force once again with the sound of that name.

A moment later, the door opened widely and out stepped a beautiful, young woman. Ron couldn't help looking at her from head to toe. Her eyes, skin, and hair all dark colors: black hair long and shimmering like obsidian, deep brown eyes like leather, and skin smooth like porcelain and a shade reminiscent of oak. Her dress was a pure white like a wedding dress, but with the style of an Arabic belly dancer, and the skirt coming down to her knees with a slit all the way up her thigh, and her top was like a swimsuit top as it wrapped around her chest, showing the curve of her bosom as well as the well defined belly.

"You called, Oracle?" The young woman, which Ron and Kim assumed was the one named Sati, bowed, and looked over at the trio. She only glanced at Morpheus and Kim, but not with Ron. She made eye contact with Ron and her face lit up as if she had been reunited with a lost love. She dashed over to Ron, took him in her arms and hugged him, while Ron was starting to feel smothered.

"You've returned!" She cheered with great joy as she let go of Ron and looked into his brown eyes, "Oracle said I would see you again, but I began to wonder if I would."

Ron looked at the woman named Sati, and was about to ask if they'd met before, but then he had another flashback. He remembered lying down on his back on a hard concrete floor, and when he woke up he found himself in a train station; a subway to be precise. He remembered a little girl being there, who met him when he woke up.

A little girl named…

"Sati…" Ron uttered in that voice that again didn't seem like his own, but he still managed to smile with it, "You have grown up so much."

"Um…Ron." Kim interrupted, "Can we stay focused here? We're in a hurry to do some saving."

"Um…right, Kim." Ron said as he brought his focus back to the mission at hand, but Ron wasn't blind to notice that Kim was flashing suspicious looks over at Sati. His mind would have dwelt further upon the issue, but then the Oracle started giving instructions.

"Sati?" The Oracle asked, "Would you show them the shortcut to the Council Hall?"

"Yes, of course, Oracle." Sati bowed and smiled before she reached into her purse and pulled out a small ring of keys. With the keys in her hand, she moved past Kim, Ron, Wade, and Morpheus to the main door of the apartment. Instantly, she chose one of the keys, placed it into the key hole, and, with a turn of the key and doorknob, she opened the door, but what she opened the door to seemed to defy the rules of the Matrix as Kim and Ron knew them.

They went ahead through the door and found a long, white, fluorescent lighted hallway filled with green doors. There were doors down the hall in both directions as far as the eye could see. The two teens couldn't help just staring in awe of what they were seeing.

"Let's move, shall we?" Morpheus asked as he came into the hallway with Kim and Ron, "Our time is short."

Kim and Ron looked back to the door that they came through; Sati was about to close the door, with Wade and the Oracle waving at them from the other side.

"Good luck on the mission, Kim." Wade smiled as Sati closed the door and joined the trio.

Sati motioned, "This way." and the four of them walked down the hall with Kim and Ron still looking around in awe about where they were.

"Kim." Ron whispered, "I think I know what this place is."

"What is it, then?" Kim asked back.

"They're back doors." Ron answered, "Programmer access."

"And don't tell me." Kim guessed Ron's next sentence, "You don't know how you know that, you just do."

Ron simply shrugged at Kim's response.

Ahead, Sati glanced over her shoulder at Kim, remembering the nasty look she had received from the red-head a while back. She had a feeling that something had to be going on between those two for such a reaction to be warranted and so she tested her hunch.

"Are you his girlfriend?" She slyly asked Kim.

Kim was quick to answer with a light snort, "Yeah right. Me? Ron's girlfriend? Best friend, definitely, but us as a couple? No way."

"Uh huh." Sati said as she looked ahead down the infinite hall of doors. Her tone seemed sarcastic to Kim as if she were saying that she didn't believe the answer given.

Kim looked over at Ron, who didn't look at her; she wondered about that question and thought in a rather shallow way that Ron couldn't stack up to Josh Mankey. She looked from Ron back to Sati, who stopped at a singular door that looked just like the hundreds of other doors in that hallway. Sati didn't take out the keys from her purse; instead she turned to look at the two teens.

"Since you're not his girlfriend," She addressed Kim, "You won't mind me doing this." Sati then looked over to Ron with a gaze in her eyes, much like what Kim had when she looked at Josh. Sati then leaned over to Ron and gave him a quick kiss on his lips. It wasn't anything passionate; it seemed more like a kiss that a little girl would give to anyone before learning of the passions that go into one kiss. Ron, on the other hand, began to blush so much that he could feel the start of sweat on his forehead. Yet, he loved the feeling; it was such that his head was spinning and he could feel that stirring within his own loins with something so simple. Sati broke the small kiss and looked at the dazed Ron.

"I have wanted to do that since I was a little girl." She smiled as she took out her keys and opened the door to another hallway, but a more business-like hallway, "Here you are and good luck to you all."

Morpheus and Ron were the first to go through the open door. Morpheus simply gave a nod to Sati as his form of thanks and Ron walked past her with a goofy, dazed look on his face like a boy having his first crush. Kim, however, didn't move from where she stood. Ron and Morpheus, through the door, watched her warily as she stared at Sati. She glared at the older woman with a contemptuous look in her emerald eyes, a kind of spitefulness, as if Kim wanted nothing more than to tear out her throat and then stuff it back down her mouth.

"Kimberly." Morpheus called, "Come along."

"Right." Kim answered back as she glanced at Morpheus and Ron on the other side of the door. She walked up to the door and passed Sati, as she did, she still gave that woman an icy, death glare. When she was through the door, Sati spoke again.

"Good luck again," Sati said before smiling sadly at Kim, "I pity you for not seeing what is before you."

Kim didn't even turn to look at Sati; she still had that resentment for that stunt she pulled with Ron. As the door closed behind her, she tried to figure out why it bothered her so much. She wasn't Ron's girlfriend after all, so why was she so upset by it? She set it aside when Morpheus called to them.

"Come." He said as he walked down the hall with Ron and Kim following suit, "Let's see what you've learned."

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Across the city from where the Oracle lived was the United Nations building, the very place where the Council Members from Neo Zion were to meet the representatives of the Machine Empire. However, before any of the discussions could even get started, they were interrupted by a man with hairy hands and bare feet with opposable toes, the master of Tai Sheng Pek Quar (Monkey Kung Fu), Monkey Fist. He came into the Great Hall of the United Nations building swiftly and forcefully, taking the Machine and Zion representatives hostage. In the Great Hall, which was modeled after the Greek Theater with its half circle of desks and seats going up and up and the floor down at the bottom. Monkey Ninjas were guarding all the doors, while Monkey Fist stayed down on the floor near the podium. He paced back and forth, looking at all the representatives and reveling in the possibilities of what he could gain.

"I should get a bundle for holding these buffoons hostage." He said to himself, though it was over on his left, down in front that he caught a good glimpse of something that whetted his appetite for revenge even further. He saw a man and a woman, one with brown hair that was graying along the sideburns and the other with red hair that came down to the bottom of her neck. He came over on all fours and looked at them, "What an added treat! Kim Possible's parents! What bargaining chips I have gained!"

The Possible parents hugged each other almost like refugees waiting for the war to be over.

"You won't get away with this, Monkey Fist!" Mr. Possible threatened the kung fu freak.

"Oh won't I?" Monkey Fist smiled widely as he got up on the desk in front of them, perching over them like a stone gargoyle, "I haven't heard anything from your precious daughter in weeks. If she really were around, she'd have stopped me by now…but she hasn't. The stars have shined down on me today!"

As the Monkey Kung Fu Master reveled in his nearing success to his evil deeds without any interference, the past that had haunted him was coming to call at the door. Outside the Great Hall of the United Nations came Kim Possible, Ron Stoppable, and Morpheus. All three of them ready and waiting to try out their martial arts tactics on whatever was beyond the closed doors. They came unarmed, but, then again, when fighting martial artists, what would the point be? It would take the point out of learning all those martial arts styles during training day.

"This is it." Morpheus said as he looked past Kim and Ron at the door. "Ready?"

"Born ready." Kim said.

"I'm furiously psyched and ready to kick some major, monkey ass." Ron said with a great smile on his face.

"Let's do it." Kim said as she and Ron both, like synchronized swimmers, reached up with their legs and kicked the doors to the Great Hall wide open. They heard the screech of the Monkey Ninja's being shoved aside by the huge and heavy doors along with the last line of Monkey Fist's rant down below.

Kim was quick with her response.

"You'll definitely be seeing stars, Monkey Boy." Kim called out from the top of the Great Hall, as she and Ron walked down the aisle between the desks and chairs.

"Kim Possible." Monkey Fist smiled, "I would be surprised to see you, like Doctor Drakken is all the time, but what would be the point. I was thinking that this was going rather too easily, so I'll finish this quickly. Monkey ninjas! ATTACK!"

From all around the Great Hall, Kim and Ron saw the Monkey Ninjas coming like a flood ready to consume them both. Yet, while Kim was in her fighting stance, Ron didn't cower behind her like he always did in the past. He simply stood his ground as the simian shinobis came at him. They were all within striking distance when Ron raised his right hand. The Monkey Ninjas all made their attack against Team Possible as Ron's hand rose, and before their primate persecutors had time to do anything, they all froze. Every single simian stopped dead in mid-air around Kim and Ron as if they had all hit some kind of invisible fly paper. Some of them struggled to get loose, but they couldn't. Ron then turned his hand over, palm up, and raising his hand, he sent them flying into the ceiling, and then after turning it back over, he flicked his hand like he was performing a sleight of hand trick and all the Monkey Ninjas flew backwards against the walls, knocking out those that were still conscious after the impromptu meeting with the ceiling.

Kim turned to Ron.

"I told you that I wouldn't be dead weight, KP." Ron said calmly to Kim.

"What in the world just happened?" Monkey Fist gasped as he tried to grasp what had just happened in the past minute or so. While at his feet, the Possibles saw Kim and Ron and, instinctively, decided to duck down underneath the desks to hide from Kim. They didn't know if she knew what they knew about the situation, about the Matrix, the machines, the plans to rebuild the real world, or any of it. After all, how would they explain what a rocket scientist and a neurosurgeon were doing at the United Nations? As they ducked down they whispered to themselves.

"Do you think Kimmie knows about us?" Mrs. Possible asked her husband.

"I'm not sure." Mr. Possible answered back, "But her clothes and Ron's seem very different than what they normally wear. She must be with Morpheus."

As Mister and Misses Possible hid, the battle between Monkey Fist and Team Possible continued. Ron Stoppable looked down at Monkey Fist, who had hopped down into the aisle and was now looking up at his old nemesis. The one who started out to fear and hate monkeys and apes, all freaks of nature as he called them since they all held stuff with their feet, but that didn't seem to matter anymore. For Ron and Monkey Fist, it was a more personal battle with the incidents that they'd had against one another: The Jade Monkey Statues, the Tempus Simia, the Lotus Blade, the Prophecy of the Space Monkey, etc. Each time, Ron was there and it seemed he became more and more unafraid of monkeys. Yet, Monkey Fist knew there was something different about this time.

"I was expecting you, as well, old friend." Monkey Fist smiled sarcastically as he reached into his belt and pulled out a hand full of shuriken, "After all, where Kim Possible goes, her bumbling sidekick always follows, like a pathetic lapdog!" He made that last statement as he threw the stars up the aisle at Ron. Kim went back into her fighting stance ready to dodge, block, or catch them, but Ron stepped forward and held up his hand. Like the Monkey Ninjas before, the throwing stars froze in place as if they had embedded themselves in some invisible wall. Ron brought again pushed his hand forward and the super-sharp throwing stars flew back toward their owner. Monkey Fist had less than a second to dodge his own projectiles as they whistled through the air past him to embed themselves in the wall behind him.

"That won't work anymore, Monkey Butt." Ron said with a great defiance in his voice at Monkey Fist.

As Ron stepped down the aisle to meet up with his old nemesis, Kim looked over her shoulder at all the diplomats whispering amongst themselves. Is that really him? Neo? The One! Has he really returned to us? Praise Neo! The One! He has returned! It took a very weird turn in Kim's mind, because it felt awkward for Ron to save her instead of the other way around, but then again there were times that Ron had saved her, like the time she was vanishing into nothingness and Ron brought that plant to help her, or when he donned the costume of the Fearless Ferret, not to mention those times at Wannaweep. Still, this particular situation felt so much more different than those.

"KP?" Ron asked.

Kim looked down at Ron from where she stood, "Yeah, Ron?"

"The Monkey Ninja's are waking up. Do you mind taking care of them? I'm going to take care of the Main Monkey this time."

"Fine by me." Kim smiled as she dashed out over the desks and began to fight each of the Monkey Ninjas one by one.

Meanwhile down on the main floor of the Great Hall, Monkey Fist and Ron Stoppable were in their own Kung Fu stand off. Monkey Fist went into his stance as Ron went into his. As they were staring each other down, Monkey Fist had to know something about the monkey hater.

"Have you gained a new level of Monkey Magic?" He asked, almost sounding frightened by what Ron could do, but still tried to retain the strength in his stance to show no weaknesses to his foe.

"No Monkey Magic is anything like what I can now do." Ron smirked at Monkey Fist in an almost demonic manner.

The way that Ron was smiling at Monkey Fist made him angry, because it just seemed so arrogant and pompous, but at the same time…frightening. Yet, Monkey Fist laid aside his fears and concentrated on the fact that the boy was still a buffoon and an arch-bumbler. From his stance he bolted and jumped for Ron Stoppable; it seemed like he did it in half an instant, but while Ron was holding his stance, Monkey Fist, like the throwing stars and the monkey ninjas he sent, froze in mid-air. He tried desperately to get free out of whatever was holding him.

"Let me go!" He cried out, trying desperately to use all his strength and power to break free, but he was reduced to watching as Ron came over to him. They locked eyes for a moment, or at least Monkey Fist did, since Ron was staring at him from behind his mirrored sunglasses. Ron leapt up and kneed Monkey Fist in his sternum knocking all breath out of him and sending him up and out one of the many walls near their battle ground.

As the fight continued on down on the floor, Kim felt like a spectator watching a martial arts competition, but she couldn't help feeling that something was wrong. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the cell phone that was part of the program that Niobe designed along with her clothes, and made the call.

"Operator." Links voice called out from the other end.

"Link." Kim called, "I think something's wrong with Ron. What's going on as far as the code goes?"

"It's going all weird over here." Link reported, "Last time I saw shit like this was when Neo was alive and kicking Agents' asses, but there's something else in the code that I remember seeing before. I can't quite place where, though."

As Kim's concerns grew, the battle continued on, even though it was all one-sided. Ron was simply kicking Monkey Fist's ass and he was only doing it with one hand. The Kung Fu Master was already bruised and bleeding as Ron picked him up by the collar of his uniform.

"Still want more?" Ron asked sadistically, "I haven't even broken a sweat!"

The fear gripped Monkey Fist like nothing he had ever experienced before. In the back of his mind, he was starting to regret the day that he ever met this boy. Looking at that smile and those mirrored sunglasses on his face, he couldn't take anymore, but that wasn't the worst. Ron's fist reached back and plunged into Monkey Fist's chest; it felt like his fingers were digging through his skin, much in the same way that bare fingers rip into the meat of fried chicken, and Monkey Fist could feel himself bleeding and gasping for air.

"What…what's…happened…to you?" Monkey Fist wheezed as Ron's fingers went deeper and deeper into his chest.

"Me?" Ron asked in a voice that wasn't his at all; it sounded as if it belonged to a much older man, a more sadistic…more evil man, "I'm not the one you need to be worried about!"

As Ron's fingers began to press through Monkey Fist's flesh and down to the bone, Kim Possible decided to step in. In all the years that she had been out saving the world, she had never once killed anyone, never before, and she certainly wasn't about to start, nor was she going to allow Ron to either. She dashed down the steps of the Great Hall to where Ron held Monkey Fist.

"RON!" She screamed out, trying to snap him out of whatever funk he was in.

Behind the mirror-like sunglasses, Ron blinked several times before realizing what he was doing. He pulled his fingers out of Monkey Fist's chest, and allowed him to come down to the floor of the great hall. He looked at his hands and the blood that was on his fingertips. He reached up with his clean hand, pulled off his shades, and looked at Kim with those big, brown eyes.

"KP?" He asked with such a worried look on his face, "I…I don't know what came over me."

"It's ok." Kim smiled warmly as she placed a hand on Ron's shoulder, "We got him, and that's what matters; now let's get out of here."

Ron nodded, and looked back at his fallen enemy. Even though he hated and despised Monkey Fist, deep down, Ron felt that he should be grateful to this misguided madman. Mainly because if it weren't for his constant exposure to all the monkeys and monkey business, Ron would have never gotten over his fear of monkeys in the first place, just like Morpheus said, 'Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.' He looked down at Monkey Fist and the blood that was oozing down his chest, he then looked at his own blood stained hand.

"What was I about to do?" He asked himself.

"Ron?" Kim called from the main door of the Great Hall.

"Coming, KP." Ron called as he dashed up the stairs where he met up with Kim and Morpheus.

Morpheus looked at them both and smiled proudly like a father looking at his children on their graduation day.

"Excellent work, you two, and now it's time to go."

Kim and Ron nodded as they followed Morpheus down the elevator of the United Nations building to the ground floor. Coming back out into the sunlight, both Kim and Ron saw the sun setting inside the Matrix. It still was unbelievable; the whole world that they knew was digital, and yet, there seemed so much detail in everything. As they left the United Nations building, neither one of them knew that as they did, Kim Possible's parents were watching their little girl and her best friend with a great sense of pride in their hearts.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Back in the real world, onboard the _Neb II_, Kim Possible gasped as she had awakened in the jack chair. She looked up at the dingy and grimy hulls of the Neb, while Niobe stood over her, taking out the jack from the back of her head. At the same time, the jack chair that Kim was in was being lowered so that her restraints could be unbuckled. As she sat up in the chair, she looked over and saw Ron leaving the room. Something was wrong.

"Hey Ron!" She called, "Wait up!" She reached down and took off the buckles binding her feet, jumped out of the chair and followed Ron down the halls. "Wanna get something to eat? I know the goop isn't that great, but I could really use some company."

"Thanks, but no thanks, KP." Ron said as he smiled weakly Kim. "I'm not feeling so well; I think I'll just get some rest."

"Ok." Kim acknowledged as Ron stepped out, leaving her behind. Kim couldn't shake off the feeling that there was definitely something wrong. Firstly, there was the way that Ron looked after he came out of his session the Oracle, then there was that girl named Sati, and that incident where it looked like Ron was about to kill Monkey Fist. Kim knew Ron better than anyone else, even Ron's parents. She knew that Ron was the sweetest man that could ever live and that the thought of killing someone was a violation of his being, yet, there he was; ready and willing to kill Monkey fist without a second thought. 'What's going on?' That was the train of thought going through Kim's mind over and over again.

"Kimberly." Morpheus called.

Kim quickly brushed off everything about the situation and turned to face Morpheus, "Yes, sir?" She asked, already in mission mode, "What now, sir?"

"Currently we're running low on energy, and it will take about a week to get back to Neo Zion." Morpheus reported to Kim, "We should get there in time for the Anniversary if we leave now, but after the celebration and when the Neb is recharged, we'll come back and pay the Merovingian a little visit as the Oracle suggested. As for right now, I believe you mentioned getting something to eat."

"Yes, sir." Kim smiled as she followed Morpheus to the mess hall of the _Neb II_.

Meanwhile, down in one of the cells, Ron was still feeling the effects of what he had done or was about to do to Monkey Fist. He looked at his right hand, the very hand that was going to kill him. Even though there was no blood on it, Ron could still see clearly in his mind the image of that man's blood on his hands. He went over to one of the cots, laid down, and curled up into a little ball, trembling slightly as he kept staring at that hand of his.

"What was I going to do?" He asked in his mind, trembling with fear, "Why was I even going to do it?"

As he thought about it, he remembered the Oracle's words, 'You've got two sides to you. Each side has a path. You have the potential to be a hero beyond any the world has ever known, inside the Matrix or out, but you also have the potential to destroy everything and enjoy every second of it.'

Ron mulled over that last sentence and became very frightened by the prospects of it. As he stared at his own hand and thought about that last part that he replayed over and over in his head, he had to admit something very terrible to himself. He had to admit that while he held Monkey Fist in that position and had his fingers plunged into his chest….he had to admit…he enjoyed it. He enjoyed watching Monkey Fist suffer.

He trembled even more as he hugged the pillow and pulled the covers over his head; he felt like he was a child again. When he was younger, he slept with a nightlight on because he thought that there were monsters in his toy box. He felt even more scared on that cot on the _Neb II_, because those monsters were all in his head, and this time, they were trying to get out.

"Whoever this guide of mine is…" Ron whimpered under the covers, "I hope she'll hurry up and…help me…"

To be continued…


	5. Resurrections Chapter 5

**The Kimmatrix: Matrix Resurrections**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion by**

**Classic Cowboy and Turles**

**Chapter 5: Neo Zion**

"_There's no place like home. There's no place like home."  
_

- Judy Garland (Wizard of Oz)

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

"Zion Control, this is _Nebuchadnezzar II_ on approach to the city." Niobe spoke into her headset while strapped into the co-pilot seat, "Requesting permission to enter gate 3."

The _Neb II_ hovered through a large passageway littered with all manner of clutter beneath it like some kind of ancient junkyard wasting away from the ravages of time. While ahead of the hovership was a great and intricate doorway that looked like something one would see in a church; enormously tall, thin (wide enough only for a ship), and split down the center. While at the sides of the doors were twin cannons that whirred about and set their sights upon the approaching hovercraft.

It was always a tense moment to come to the doors of Zion, mainly because there was always the paranoia that the machines would follow any hovercraft. After all, the machines had already managed to break into Zion once; who's to say that it couldn't happen again?

On the bridge of the _Neb II_, Kim handled the controls while Niobe sat back and studied Kim's technique.

"_Nebuchadnezzar II_, this is Zion Control," A kindly woman's voice responded over the radio, "Stand by while the gates open…"

Kim watched as the towering gates of Zion sent out dust and dirt to the littered floor below as they began to inch their way open. As she watched, it dawned upon her how all of it was possible, how a world so bleak, used up, and burnt out could still be livable. How could people find the will to build such things like those gates and these hoverships? Kim smiled because she knew there was always something within the human spirit that continues, or chooses to continue on.

With the gates of Zion opened, Kim saw a very odd looking robot standing at the gate with an exposed human pilot sitting in its chest. The robot had its gun-mounted arms trained on the garbage-covered tunnel outside. Seeing the ship approach, the robot's pilot brought down an arm, which was mimicked by the robot. Though the robot itself was dwarfed by the sheer size of the gates, it looked to be at least a couple of stories tall.

"_Nebuchadnezzar II_," the voice over the radio called again, "you are cleared through Gate 3 to landing pad B."

"Roger that, Control," Niobe responded, "_Nebuchadnezzar II_ coming in."

Niobe looked over at Kim, who looked very nervous as she gently eased the controls forward. With that, the _Neb II_ passed through the gateway and over the head of the odd robot with its exposed human pilot. As it passed through, Kim saw the landing bay of Zion. It was a place filled with ships like the _Neb II_. All of them were stationary; like cars in a parking garage.

The Neb was coming closer while the voice over the radio made its welcome.

"Door's open, bed's made. Welcome home."

"No place like it." Niobe smiled before turning to the very nervous Kim, "Want me to take over, Kimmie?"

Kim looked over at Niobe and nodded without any hesitation, "Maybe you should." She said as Niobe took hold of the controls, "I crashed two out of three times in the Construct." Kim added nervously.

"Like drivers education, huh?" Niobe asked gently, making a slight joke.

Kim looked at Niobe with a much narrowed look, "Please don't remind me."

"That bad?"

"…the worst…"

Niobe smiled at her unofficial protégé, "Alright, but watch what I do, ok?"

Kim nodded as she looked out the windows at the parking garage of different ships within Zion. Even though Niobe told her to watch what she did, Kim couldn't help thinking about Ron; how there was something in his eyes. He seemed… frightened, not the typical Ron kind of fear evoked by Camp Wannaweep, or, as Ron called it: the place of evil. The fear that Kim saw seemed more genuine, as if Ron knew about dangers that were truly real and not the proverbial monsters in the closet.

As the _Neb II_ circled the inner walls of the docking bay to its landing point, it could be seen how much damage had been done from the last invasion of the machines into Zion. The cracks in the dome-like concrete walls where the machines entered were closed off, hacked together and poorly welded with scraps of metal that the scavengers of Zion had found. Then there were the buildings that sat in the center of each circle of parked ships. All of the buildings looked as though they were breaking down, but still had enough life in them to keep going like plants striving to stay alive in the dead of winter. The machines, like the gear system used to open the gates, were still working even though they were in desperate need of new parts, among other things. All of the worn out machines and broken down places reaffirmed Kim's feeling that there was something human about all of it, the human refusal to lie down and die, to keep going in spite of the adversities that were all around.

Kim thought about that as the _Neb II_ touched down at the platform with the letter B in faded paint on the concrete pad supporting the immense hovership.

"Welcome to Zion, Kimmie." Niobe smiled as she unbuckled herself from the co-pilot's chair. She stood up and stretched a bit before she reached over to the other side of her seat to pick up a small bag.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Morpheus, Ghost, Link, and Ron were waiting at the bay doors when Niobe and Kim met up with them. It was the first time that they had seen each other since Ron's fight with Monkey Fist. At first, Kim was wondering if she would still see that same look of fear in his eyes. Yet, she felt relaxed when she saw that same "Ron-ness" as he stood at the bay doors, struggling to stand straight under the weight of carrying his own, as well as Morpheus' and Ghost's bags. When Kim and Niobe met up with them and the bay doors opened, the air permeated by the smell of stale oil from the gears of the machines, ozone caused by the sparks of electricity, and the sweat of hundreds of people swept over the crew of the _Neb II_.

"Thank God we're home." Niobe smiled and she flung her bag over her shoulder.

Kim couldn't help letting her bag to drop to her side when she saw the docking bay of Zion with her own eyes. It was incredible to say the least. The entire docking bay was almost like an enormous garage, at least that's what Kim had likened it to, and not all the different military installations she had been to. She saw the rest of the Neb's crew move forward and she was about to bend down to pick up her bag up when Ron came down and grabbed its strap.

"Don't worry KP, I got it." He said as he tried to lift it onto his shoulders while bearing the weight of all the other bags. Ultimately Ron couldn't stand up and so Kim shook her head and smiled.

"I'll take some Ron," Kim said as she took a few straps off of Ron's shoulders, "After all, you can't shoulder everything yourself."

"I should be saying that to you, KP."

"What'd you mean, Ron?" Kim asked as she threw the bags over her shoulders.

"You two comin' or what?" Link asked Ron and Kim.

"We're coming." Ron said as he redistributed the weight of the bags and came down the gangplank to the floor of Neo Zion's docking bay.

"Since you two are new here," Morpheus began, "I should tell you something about this place. Think of all of it as three pillars built into the ground." Morpheus said as he tried to illustrate his explanation with his hands, "We are in the first pillar. This was Zion until it was heavily damaged on, what has come to be called, The Day of Reckoning. Afterwards, it became known as Old Zion. We left it mostly alone in honor of those who fell in that final battle. We now only use it as a port and power supply. Later, we began construction on the other two pillars; the one to the left of Old Zion is Trin Zion where the hospitals, schools, and the access cable to the Matrix is. There's also Neo Zion, which is to the right of Old Zion, that's where the living area, temple, and council hall is located. Since this whole place has been rebuilt, it's been called by the same name as the Western pillar: Neo Zion."

As Morpheus finished his explanation on the construction and locations of the places within Neo Zion, the crew of the _Neb II_ heard a voice calling out to them. It was a voice that Kim and Ron knew but hadn't heard in a very, very long time.

"Morpheus!" The voice spoke up. It was loud and gruff as it spoke the next sentence, "I was afraid you wouldn't make it for the celebration!"

"Mister Barkin?" Kim asked herself, thinking back to Middleton High; the last that Kim had ever heard of Mister Barkin was that he was being transferred to another school. At least that's what the word around the campfire was; others said that he simply quit and rejoined the army. It seemed as the pieces began to fit together, Mister Barkin did indeed rejoin the army, but not quite the one that everyone was thinking of.

"That's Captain 'Kid' Barkin, Kimberly." Morpheus leaned over and corrected Kim.

Kim looked out into the crowd and saw Captain Barkin come out to meet the _Neb II_ crew; he didn't look that much different than when he was inside the Matrix. Still the same crew-cut hair that was always given out in basic training. He was still large and brawny just like at Middleton High; the only difference was his clothes: all old, oil-stained, and devoid of any color.

"Captain Barkin." Morpheus smiled as he reached out to shake the burly Captain's hand, "I've heard good things of you and your ship. The _Mad Dog_, is it, old friend?"

"Yes." Barkin said, smiling and completely ignoring Kim and Ron, "And word around here is that you've found him. So where is he, does he remember me or who he was? Hell, just where is he?"

"Here he is." Morpheus smiled as he backed up onto the gangplank and stood next to Ron. With a confident smile, he laid his hand upon Ron's shoulder.

Barkin looked up at Morpheus, then back at Ron, and then back at Morpheus with a little chuckle in his voice, "Morpheus, you suck at telling jokes, now where's Neo?"

"It is official by the Oracle." Niobe stepped into the conversation, "Ron is The One."

Barkin came further up the gangplank and looked Ron over. Even though they were out into the real world, Ron still felt small compared to the enormous size and bulkiness of Captain Barkin. Yet, Ron saw a different look in Barkin's eyes; it was as if he was searching for something on his person, at least for the moment.

"Ha!" Barkin laughed and gave Ron a good hard slap on Ron's back, "Well, I'll be damned. Finally got out of your little girlfriend's shadow, did ya Stoppable? Ha! I still can't believe that this was the guy who saved me."

When Captain Barkin said that last sentence, it triggered another sense of déjà vu. Ron looked up at the burly captain with a confidence that Barkin had never seen before in Ron's eyes, at least not in all the times that he was at Middleton High.

"I didn't save you, kid." Ron said in that voice that didn't seem like his, but Kim noticed that it wasn't sinister or evil like during his fight with Monkey Fist; it was gentle and soothing. "You saved yourself."

When Ron said that to Barkin, the captain's eyes widened as he squatted down to get an even better look at Ron; he looked at him a little more closely than before, searching harder. He recognized the strength and selflessness that he had seen another's eyes only sixteen years ago.

"My…God…" Barkin uttered with a pale complexion, "You are him."

"Is it true, Captain Barkin?" Another voice called out in the direction of the _Neb II_ crew, Kim and Ron knew that voice all too well. They looked and confirmed that the voice belonged to none other than Bonnie Rockwaller, and just like Barkin, she didn't look that much different than when she was in the Matrix, same hair and same hateful look in her eyes. She came up the gangplank and met up with Barkin, "Is Stoppable, the Ron Stoppable, really the One?"

Bonnie and Kim did lock eyes for a moment, but then Bonnie broke contact and looked towards Ron. It was a look that Kim knew; it was the very same look that she, herself, had when she saw Josh Mankey. She looked between Bonnie and Ron and had a small flashback to when Ron got a huge check for Naco Royalties from Bueno Nacho. He went cash crazy, and Bonnie, certainly, was no help in stopping him, especially when he bought a ridiculously huge, pink diamond ring. Seeing that look on Bonnie's face toward Ron had already sent her suspicions through the roof, but there was one thing that Kim had to know.

"Bonnie?" Kim asked, "You're here too? I thought that you transferred."

"That's what we wanted everyone to think." Another man's voice called out and up the gangplank of the _Neb II_ came Brick Flagg, just like Bonnie and Barkin before, Brick hadn't changed a bit, except for his clothes and all the plugs in his body, which was probably what Barkin and Bonnie had as well.

"He's right, Possible." Barkin added as Brick approached, "We wanted everyone to think that we just transferred or moved away so no one would get suspicious and file missing person reports."

"Yeah, what he said." Brick agreed.

"Oh, and by the way Kim." Bonnie said as she came to Ron's side, "Out here we're not exactly called by our real names. I'm called Tres, nice ring, don't you think?"

"I'm called The Kid," Barkin added, "have been ever since I was freed."

"And they call me…Tater Salad." Brick smiled.

"Tater Salad?" Kim asked very surprised about the name that Brick had chosen for himself, as compared to the others that she knew. There was Morpheus, Niobe, Link, and Ghost, and Tater Salad?

"That's right." Brick smiled with pride, but then he turned to Ron and looked at him like an eager fan meeting their favorite sports player, music or movie star, "So man, can you really stop bullets and fly like Superman? I've only been out for a year and you wouldn't believe the stories I've heard about the One. He's like…the man around here."

"I'm not surprised at all; only someone as great as Ron could be the One." Bonnie said as she took Ron's arm and leaned her head against his shoulder in a way that made Kim's blood boil for some reason that she couldn't rationalize, only that she felt that it was 'sick and wrong', as Ron would say. Bonnie turned to Ron as she hung on his arm and said in almost the same tone that Kim used for her puppy dog pout, "I've been with Barkin on the _Mad Dog_ for three months now. I've really missed you, Ronnie."

"Ronnie!" Kim shouted out in her mind as she felt her blood beginning to boil over throughout her systems. It wasn't just internal, either. It could be seen on her face and in her body language that she was ready to pounce on Bonnie and start an all-out cat fight. Her teeth were bared and grinding, and her eyes were narrowed into a gaze that made some members of the _Neb II_ crew fearful.

"Ghost." Morpheus leaned over to his crewmember, signaling to him to try to restrain Kim before the situation turned into something that could get the two of them thrown into the stockade. Ghost acknowledged, went over to Kim, and tried to restrain her in the most discreet way possible.

"Where's the rest of your crew?" Morpheus asked of Captain Barkin, "I think Kazaa and Napster would be useful right about now."

"They're already in Neo Zion setting up their apartment." Captain Barkin reported, "And Sparks is doing a once over on the Dog, but they should be getting back here in a few minutes."

"Who are Napster and Kazaa?" Ron asked, hoping that someone would answer his question, but no one did.

Barkin, on the other hand, had turned and was about to head down the gangplank back to his ship when he saw the far doors open and the two people coming towards him.

"Ah! Speak of the Devils." Barkin smiled, "Here they come now."

Kim and Ron looked up and couldn't believe their own eyes when they saw who these Napster and Kazaa people were. Not even Kim, she dropped her bags and reached up to rub her eyes to make sure she wasn't just hallucinating from all the events that had taken place around her. She reopened her eyes and saw that she wasn't hallucinating, that it was all real, even more so when the two people approaching her called out:

"Kimmie-cub!"

Kim sprinted down the gangplank and out over the landing platform as if her life depended upon it, but at the same time there was no fear. There was only the sheer, absolute joy of seeing her mother and father coming up to meet her. It was just the thing that she needed to forget about the situation that was starting to develop between Ron and Bonnie.

"Mom! Dad!" Kim cried out with just a shimmer of a tear in her eye as she ran into the arms of both her mother and father. With her arms around her parents, Kim didn't want to let go, just to stay there in their arms like she did on that first day of Preschool when she met Ron for the very first time.

For both Mister and Misses Possible, it was the greatest blessing that they had seen in such a long time. Their own daughter out of the Matrix and in one piece, it was so much that they both ran their hands over the red shadow of stubble on Kim's head from her forehead all the way back to the plug at the back of her head.

"You got out early, Kimmie." Kim's mother breathed as she ran her hand over and over again over Kim's stubble covered scalp.

Kim looked up at both her mother and father. She noticed something about them that she missed in her euphoria of seeing them again. Both Mister and Misses Possible had their hair grown out fully just like they always had while they were inside the Matrix, just like Brick, Bonnie, and Barkin.

"I thought…" Kim stuttered, not even making sense to herself, "How did…you're here?" Yet, the joy was so great to see her parents that she didn't even care about that anymore.

"We were freed when you were around three." Misses Possible explained as she held her daughter close to her, "The reconstruction of Neo Zion needed scientists, doctors, and surgeons with actual experience and not just programming from the construct."

When the joy passed over, Kim looked up at her mother and father, "They were calling you two Napster and Kazaa, which one is which?" She asked.

"Oh, that." Mister Possible smiled in his usual, carefree manner, "They call me Napster and your mother is known as Kazaa."

"Now young lady." Napster (Mister Possible) said to his daughter in that lecturing tone that all fathers possess, "We need to have a talk about what you are wearing into the Matrix. Just because you're on Morpheus' ship doesn't mean you have to keep the dress code tradition."

Kim looked at them both oddly, "How do you know what I'm wearing into the Matrix?"

Napster and Kazaa paused and looked at their daughter.

"You know that fight you had with Monkey Fist at the U.N. building?" Kazaa (Misses Possible) asked, "Well, we were among the many diplomats there."

"You saw everything?" Kim asked.

"Now, Kimmie." Napster said in his fatherly tone, "You know that I don't approve of violence, but under the circumstances, I think we can make an exception."

"We're so glad to see you free and here, baby." Kazaa smiled and then looked up to the gangplank of the _Neb II_ and the crew of that ship, "You couldn't be in better hands."

"Now, we've got some more work to do in Trin Zion, Kimmie." Napster said as he handed Kim a small packet, "Here's the address and keys to the apartment for you and Ron. We hope we have it to your liking."

Kazaa leaned over and kissed her daughter on the cheek, "It's so good to see you out, baby, and don't worry about your hair; it'll grow back before you know it."

Kim placed one free hand on her stubble-covered head, "Thanks mom." She said with a slight smile, hoping that it would grow back soon. She then looked back to the approaching crews of both the _Mad Dog_ and the _Neb II_. She didn't so much concentrate on any other members except Bonnie and Ron. It was the way that Bonnie held onto Ron's arm and had her head against his shoulder that just burned through her so much that she thought she was going to have a stroke or maybe just claw the little bitch's eyes out.

As they approached, Kim could definitely see that smug look on her face, just like that time when Bonnie went and gave one-hundred-forty percent in order to become the squad captain.

"Bad hair day, Kimmie?" Bonnie asked smugly and then made a faux surprise of her own mistake, "Oh, that's right, it hasn't grown back yet. I'm sorry. It's a shame your hair probably won't be as pretty as it was when you were inside the Matrix."

"Yeah." Kim replied with narrow eyes, and through grinding teeth, trying to use her own smug comeback, "You've pretty much proven that it's almost impossible to get it like it was."

"What's it like, Kimmie?" She asked ignoring Kim's remark, and snuggling even tighter against Ron's arm, "Finally being pushed out of the way by the sidekick you've held back for so many years."

Kim couldn't take it anymore, she growled at Bonnie, "Listen here, you little bi…"

"That's enough, ladies!" Morpheus interrupted and came between both girls like the peacemaker that he was. "Tres, Tater, Captain Barkin, we're heading into Neo Zion now, so we will meet again at the celebration tomorrow?"

"See you there, Morpheus." Barking smiled, "Come along, Tater, Tres."

As the _Mad Dog_ crew left, Kim couldn't help giving that same glare to Bonnie that she gave to Sati after her kissing Ron on the cheek. Still, it just seemed so illogical that Kim would act this way, after all she contended to Sati that she was simply Ron's best friend, not a lover or a girlfriend. At least that's how Kim tried to rationalize it, that she was just trying to look out for Ron, especially when Bonnie was involved.

After Bonnie had passed by Kim, she couldn't help looking at her as she walked away, swinging her hips back and forth exaggeratedly for Ron to gawk at.

"Slut." Kim felt herself utter as the hatred she held for Bonnie grew within her.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

The crew of the _Neb II_ moved through Old Zion (Or the center pillar as Morpheus had described it to Kim and Ron); the two of them couldn't help looking over the edge of the railing. It truly was like a pillar, a cylinder of levels that kept going down, down, down into the earth with crisscrossing bridges and pathways that resembled strands in a spider's web as they descended. Yet amongst all those crisscrossing bridges and walkways, there were clouds; literal clouds of moisture that rose and settled in different areas of Old Zion, making it seem as though they were at some great altitude instead of being underground.

They came to another small area on the top floor of Old Zion; it was essentially a train station, even though the trains were very different. It actually felt more like a subway station, even though the cars were very old and beaten up with the windows broken in and the doors barely opening under their own power as the _Neb II_ crew got onboard. It was explained that at the top level of Neo Zion, there was a station where trams would run between Old Zion, Neo Zion, and Trin Zion all the time. They were told that the trams running to the right of the station would take them to Neo Zion while the left went to Trin Zion.

The inside of the Tram itself was just as sad as the outside, still Kim and Ron had to remind themselves that, in a post apocalyptic world, there weren't any resources for such luxuries as comfortable seats. The two of them took their chances as they sat down on the old, frayed, and matted seats of the Tram, while the rest of the _Neb II_ crew stood. They sped along the tracks that ran along inside the tunnels between Old Zion and Neo Zion; it really did feel like taking the subway in the large cities.

The ride to Neo Zion was rather silent for the few minutes that they were onboard, but they could feel the Tram starting to slow down just a tad. At that point, Morpheus turned to Ron.

"Ronald." He spoke, "Perhaps I should warn you about something."

"What's that, sir?" Ron asked.

"The One is…" Morpheus began, trying to figure out the right way to break it to Ron, "I guess the best way to explain it is that the One is considered something of a Messianic figure here, so expect an unusual welcome when we exit the Neo Zion Station, all right?"

Ron nodded silently.

"Do not forget my warning, Ronald." Morpheus said as the Tram stopped and the _Neb II_ crew got out, and went through the station onto the top level of Neo Zion.

As Ron and Kim exited the tram, they saw dozens of people waiting outside the door of the Neo Zion Tram Station. They were similar, but different, different peoples in different clothing, not necessarily all of them gray and devoid of color. Some had color, only very faded and made in very crude ways; all of them looked to the doors as they opened. They seemed to be waiting like pilgrims, coming to a holy place for some kind of blessing.

As the _Neb II_ crew came out the door, the pilgrims all looked directly at Ron as they stood up. He never felt so nervous in his entire life; never before had he actually known that there were people actually watching him, every move he made, every sound he made, every gesture, but it didn't seem social; it felt more like an admiration. The kind of attention that Ron was hoping for: popularity, but he never would have expected anything like what would happen in those few minutes.

"Um…" He uttered and smiled as he raised his hand in a weak wave, "Hi?"

All the pilgrims dropped to their knees in worship of Ron, and all of them chanting, "Hail Neo, Hail the One!"

With the chanting going on over and over and over again, those few pilgrims in the middle began to part like the Red Sea leaving behind colorful garments upon the steel floor. It was just as Morpheus had said; it was like they thought Ron was Jesus or God or someone with the way they had covered the cleared path with garments to make the journey softer for their Savior. Ron blinked in confusion at what he was seeing; only a few weeks ago he was just Kim's goofy, nobody, sidekick in the halls of Middleton High and now to be praised in such a way? It was a little much for him, but it took an even greater turn when Ron felt a hand upon his shoulder. He nearly jumped, but then saw an old woman, who looked as though she was someone's grandmother.

"Bless you, Neo." She said with tears sliding down her aged cheeks, "You have finally returned to us…bless you."

"I'm, um…" Ron stuttered nervously in light of all the admiration he was receiving, "I'm not Neo. My name's Ron…Ron Stoppable."

The pilgrims all around began to look at each other in a great confusion about what they had just heard, wondering if they had been mistaken about assuming that this boy was the one called Neo, but faith has a way of blinding people into believing nearly anything.

So with that new information taken in, they began their chanting again with but a small revision.

"Hail Ron, Hail the One!"

"Ok…" Ron whispered to Kim, who was staring in just as much awe at the pilgrims as he was, "This is really freaky…"

"Super mega freaky…" Kim added, looking around at the people bowing and groveling.

"Ok, your worship." Link teased Ron as Morpheus, Niobe, and Ghost walked past them, "Your adoring public can wait 'cause I've got a wife and kid waitin' for _me_."

The four of them walked past Kim and Ron over the makeshift 'red' carpet of different rainbow colors toward the elevator doors. Morpheus looked back, signaling for Kim and Ron to follow, and the two teens did while making sure that their heavy boots didn't damage the pieces of cloth that lay before their feet. Ron couldn't help looking around at all the people bowing, muttering, praying or even praising him and saying things like 'welcome home, Neo', 'good to have you back', and 'watch over us all, Neo, in our time of need'. It was frightening to Ron in a way, after all, he did want to be popular, but what he experienced wasn't popularity; it was idolatry and he had to admit to himself that he liked it.

Ron and Kim met up with the others at the elevator. Inside the elevator car, they felt themselves going down again; as the car descended, Morpheus spoke to Kim and Ron.

"Your parents, Kimberly, have arranged for your apartment to be next to our home. I insisted on it."

"You mean for like…emergencies or something like that?" Ron asked sounding more like himself.

"Something like that." Morpheus smiled as the car came to a stop; the doors opened and they walked out. Though it wasn't to an opened walkway, it was another tunnel. Just like those tunnels with the light at the end that people talk about when they had those near-death-experiences. It did remind Ron of something; it was when Kim met Monique, and Ron had gotten tickets to Mayhem in Middleton where he would watch his favorite wrestling stars. He was underneath the bleachers and came out into the light and saw the ring, the bleachers, and the thousands of screaming fans for Pain King or Steel Toe, but this was different than that time.

He came out from the tunnel and into the light; to a place that was like the foyer of a big business building, yet it wasn't. The only thing that was familiar about it was its foyer-like feeling of the high ceiling. Looking up to the practically limitless ceiling, it seemed almost like the inside of a hotel in Las Vegas where they could see the levels for each of the rooms. Yet, it wasn't square at all; it was oval, and down at the center of this hotel-like lobby/foyer was a smooth, obsidian-colored, metal statue of a man in a Cossack coat that buttoned from his waist to his neck and looked like something a priest would wear, and a pair of sunglasses to cover his eyes. While one hand was behind his back the other was reaching outward, welcoming anyone who would wish to take his hand and be led to the place that he had in mind.

At the bottom of the statue was a square block that the man stood upon and upon it was a small dedication.

_Neo_

_The One who ended the War of Man and Machines_

"_I dipped into the future as far as the eye can see and saw a vision of the world and all the wonder that it would be."_

_- Lord Alfred Tennyson_

Kim Possible couldn't help staring up at that statue, yet as she looked she looked between Ron and the statue, she had to confirm her suspicions and reached out to Ron, held his ears back to his head, looked at him, and then back up at the statue.

"Slick back your hair, lose the Dumbo ears and freckles and you're twins." Kim stated, very sure of herself, "Maybe you are him…reincarnated."

"This is Neo?" Ron asked.

"Yes, it is." Morpheus said looking up at the statue of his old friend, "The very man I spent my life searching for, the one who risked everything for a woman he loved, and the man who ended the war of man and machines."

Niobe then came up behind Kim and Ron, "You'll have to excuse Morpheus," She apologized for Morpheus, "he can get a little emotional about his old friend."

"We'll see you later, Captain." Link said as both he and Ghost took their leave of the others and headed down to an entryway to the far left of the statue of Neo.

"Now, for you two, come this way." Morpheus gathered himself and led the two teens down another passageway to another hallway and another elevator. This time, the elevator took them up, which seemed to have a better feeling to it than going down, almost like ascension into heaven.

The elevator stopped on the sixteenth floor, and they were brought out to an exposed hallway with steel railing keeping everyone behind it from falling to a quick, relatively painless death on the lobby floor below where Neo's statue was set. The whole place felt almost like a hotel to both Kim and Ron, aside from the fact that everything seemed to be constructed out of steel, stone, and concrete.

"It's just up ahead." Morpheus said as he led them down the walkway until they came to a door that had an odd kind of plaque at eye level; it seemed like it was imitating a pattern like cuneiform or perhaps some number, but it was hard to tell since it had a resemblance to the old punch-cards of ancient computers. "This is our home and right next door is yours."

Morpheus pointed to the next door down with that same punch card object on the front, but the holes within it seemed a little bit different than the one on Morpheus' door. Ron looked at it, while Kim reached into the packet that her dad gave her and took out a pair of keys. At least that's what she assumed they were because they weren't like the usual kinds of keys that she had seen before, there was the small handle, but the end that she assumed would go into the door seemed very different, instead of indents upon one edge like a serrated knife, there were holes in the key itself, just like holes in a punch card. She nearly dropped the keys onto the floor when a young voice squealed out as the door to Morpheus' home opened. It reminded Kim instantly of her twin brothers, Jim and Tim: the Tweebs, as she would call them.

"Daddy!" The voices squealed.

Kim jumped slightly as she saw a young boy of dark complexion dashing out of the apartment to hug his father's leg. The boy seemed relatively young, around the tweebs' ages. As the boy hugged Morpheus' leg, Niobe was scolding the boy.

"Thomas?" She said in that tone that all mothers seemed to have, "Why are you not in school, young man?"

"Got out of school early today to get ready for the Celebration, mom." Another voice came from just inside the door.

Kim saw a young girl of the same dark complexion as the boy, yet she was much older, though she seemed younger than Kim, probably around thirteen or fourteen years old at the most. She leaned against the door frame and smiled brightly at Morpheus and Niobe with teeth so white that they could probably literally light up a room.

"Ronald, Kimberly." Morpheus said as he picked up the boy hugging his leg, "These are our children. The rascal here is my son, Thomas." The little boy in Morpheus' arms raised his hand, waved, and smiled at Kim and Ron, "and this lovely, young woman-to-be is Trinity."

"What do you mean 'to be', Daddy?" The girl smiled as she looked at Ron and winked at him. It felt so weird to Ron, when that girl winked at him; then again he knew that he had been getting more attention from people and women in particular. He suddenly wondered why he couldn't get any of that kind of attention while he was in the Matrix. There was one time that he tried to start with a clean slate during Spring Break in Florida when he and Kim were visiting Nana Possible, but he managed to develop the same reputation there in just one day that took him years to work up in Middleton. It was enough to thoroughly bum him out about his popularity situation, and adults wonder why kids get depressed. Acceptance is such a hard thing to achieve, especially for someone such as Ron Stoppable.

Thinking about that girl named Trinity and her tone when she asked 'what you mean to be, daddy.' sparked a very sharp memory within Ron Stoppable.

"Reminds me of someone else I know." Ron smirked at Kim.

"No," Kim mused as she went over and rustled Thomas' hair as if he were a little puppy, "Bonnie is much worse."

"I wasn't talking about Bonnie, KP." Ron smiled.

Kim looked sharply at Ron, realizing who he was talking about; she smiled back and gave Ron a playful slap on his arm.

"I don't know about all of you," Niobe announced, "But I'm ready for a nice, warm soak in my own bath." Niobe moved past her family and back into her own apartment to do just that.

Morpheus then turned and headed into the apartment himself, but not before turning to Ron and Kim, "I'll leave you two to make yourselves comfortable at your apartment." He said before closing the door behind him.

Kim and Ron looked at each other silently, and then Kim took the keys in her hand and divided them, one for herself and one for Ron. With her key, Kim went over to the door and did the very same procedure that she did on all other kinds of doors that she'd been to. The key did what it was supposed to, just as keys do, but it felt so different, at the same time, to be using a key with holes instead of carved edges.

The two teens walked through a small hallway into an open area that was both compact and spacious at the same time. There were two doors on either side of the square room, and in the center were some chairs, a small kitchen was in the far corner with dispensers of water and that white goop that they had gotten used to eating on the _Neb II_. The apartment wasn't too spacious, but it wasn't terribly small either; it seemed just right.

"Booyah!" Ron exclaimed running to one of the doors, "I call the one on the left!" He dashed the door.

"Fine with me, Ron." Kim smiled at the child-like innocence that Ron still retained. It seemed to set her mind at ease about the look that Ron had while still on the _Neb II_. It didn't seem to matter since Ron was starting to come back to his normal self. She came to this conclusion as she went to the door on the right, opened it, and looked in. The bedroom was very nice, much like the rest of the apartment. There weren't as many traces of visible metal as there were in the rest of the living area. It seemed to be made more of stone and concrete. It gave a very earthy sort of tone, kind of like the houses in Arizona made out of adobe.

There was the bed at the far corner with sheets upon it that seemed homemade, much like those garments that the pilgrims had laid out for Ron to walk upon. She set her bag down near the door and then went over to the bed to lie down upon it. Already she felt the enormous difference between this bed and the one that she had to use on the _Neb II_. It was so much softer, just like those times on missions when she would go out and have to sleep outside in just a sleeping bag, and then to come back home to her own bed.

"Feather…" She uttered to herself, "…nice…"

The comforter and the bed itself felt so comfortable that Kim just wanted to curl up on it like a cat and doze. The thought of sleep reminded her of her Cuddle Buddy, Pandaroo, and how much she missed it. Then again, it was the people that she missed the most, and they were all here in Neo Zion. Her mother, her father, Captain Barkin, and even the people she didn't even like, like Bonnie…thinking about her rival sent Kim bolt upright and burning through and through about how Bonnie had been holding Ron on the gangplank of the _Neb II_. She decided to try to not think about it and just have a shower. After all, she did feel a little grimy.

She got up and looked around the room a little more, examining all the small pieces of furniture near the bed. She found the bathroom easily. It was a little like the one on the _Neb II_: metal sink basin, toilet, but the bath was different. The bath looked positively exquisite with its carved designs. It looked almost like someone thought Kim was a princess and she should have an elegant bathtub. Seeing it, she felt eager to shower. She began to strip herself bare: her top, boots, and pants in a heap on the floor. She thought to herself that it was a shame there were no undergarments in the real world because she felt so naked underneath her threadbare clothes. As she actually was naked, she looked at the mirror above the sink basin and saw herself with a confused feeling. She saw how beautiful she was in her nudity, but at the same time she felt repulsed by her new self, especially with her hair still growing back, and all the plugs all over her body. She turned away from the mirror and went to the bath, reached over and turned on the water, allowing it to fill the tub.

As the tub was filling up, Kim heard a loud knock at the door. She quickly looked, as her arms covered her 'bits and pieces', to see if it was someone at the door to her bedroom. When she saw no one there, she got up, went to her bed, took the comforter and wrapped herself in it as if it were a towel. With the comforter around her body like a Greek Toga, she went to her door and listened.

"Ronald." Morpheus' voice came in.

"Hey, Morpheus, my man!" Ron's voice called out in that same childish sort of way as he always did. He sounded so happy to see Morpheus even though they only parted company a few minutes ago, "What's up?"

"I'd like to speak to you about something."

"Shoot."

"I'd like to discuss with you your Matrix names." Morpheus said, his voice a little louder since he was a little closer to Kim's door.

"Matrix names?" Ron asked.

"Yes, as you well know, we had our original names inside the Matrix." Morpheus explained, "Out here in the real world, however, we have different names to shed our past lives as mere prisoners of the Matrix."

"Like nicknames?" Ron asked very excited.

"Yes." Morpheus said. The sound of his smile was very prominent in his voice, "Just like that."

"And you want us to make up nicknames for ourselves?"

Morpheus didn't say a thing, but Kim knew that he had to be nodding, "I was thinking that perhaps, since you are the One, you could take Neo's name in honor of him."

"Ron Stoppable as Neo." Ron said, sounding very proud of him to hear such a title, "I like it, but what about KP?"

"It sounds like she's taking a bath right now, so it's probably best not to disturb her. I know that from walking in on my wife."

Ron gave a small, sharp giggle at that, but then, with his voice taking a very dramatic u-turn from his usual "Ron-ness" to that seriousness that Kim still hadn't gotten used to, Ron said:

"For Kim, I think the best name for her would be...Angel."

"How fitting." Morpheus complemented, "An angel with red hair."

Kim could help smiling at Morpheus' statement.

"I'll talk to her about this." Ron reassured Morpheus, "If she hasn't already heard us."

"You do that, Ronald." Morpheus said as Kim heard his footsteps walking away, "Or should I say, Neo?"

There was a moment of silence between then until Ron said, "See you later, Morpheus. I'll talk to Kim about what you said."

Morpheus didn't say a thing as Ron closed the door and Kim heard his footsteps approaching.

"Hey, KP?" Ron said as he opened the slightly ajar door to Kim's room; he came in with his hand over his eyes, "Are you decent?"

"As much as I can be, Ron." Kim said with a slightly playful sarcasm in her voice.

Ron took his hand off of his eyes and felt the start of a nosebleed as he looked at Kim standing in front of him, covered in her bed's blanket. He could feel himself looking at Kim from head to toe and the male libido starting to take over his higher brain functions and making them think on things like 'Is she naked under that blanket?'.

"Ron?" Kim asked, "You wanted to talk to me about something?"

Ron shook his head sharply as if he was trying to bring himself back to the moment, "Um…yeah." He said, "I just spoke with Morpheus and he was saying how we need Matrix names."

"Yeah," Kim replied, "I kind of overheard."

Ron looked at Kim rather confused, "You heard us, but you didn't come out?"

"Ron…" Kim said as if she was trying to prove a point in an argument, "Look at me. Would you want me to stroll out naked in front of you and Morpheus?"

"Of course not." Ron cleared his throat as his face began to blush beet red, "Anyway, since you overheard us you probably know what names were suggested."

"Uh-huh." Kim acknowledged, "I heard the name Morpheus suggested for you. I think it might be a nice fit."

"And the one for you?" Ron asked, the blushing turning a few shades lighter but still there.

"Kim 'Angel' Possible", Kim mused over her Matrix name, "I like it."

Ron smiled, "Okay then Kim, since you're going to take a bath, I'm going to go for a walk."

"Yeah, and I'm going to turn in afterwards." Kim added, "But do you want to train in the construct later?"

"Sure thing, KP." Ron smiled, "I'll be back after I get lost and, hopefully, un-lost."

"Ok, Ron." Kim said as she went back to the bathroom and her perfectly prepared bath. She reached over and turned the water off as Ron turned and left the apartment.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

The bath that Kim had was so sensuous that she couldn't help feeling free in that warm water. It wasn't quite like what she experienced when she was freed from the Matrix and woke up in that pod of pink goop. The water seemed to be a little more relaxing and so much cleaner. Kim finally got out, slipped on her clothes, put her boots near the door to her room, and crawled into the immensely comfortable bed, ensconcing herself in the surprisingly comfortable sheets and snuggling in like a kid sleeping in on a snow day. As she drifted off into sleep, she felt herself wake up once again.

She opened her eyes and felt herself jump slightly when she felt that she wasn't lying down, but rather sitting back. That quickly changed when she found herself in the Broadcast Room of the _Neb II_, at least it looked like the Broadcast Room, but then again Kim had only been on the Neb and no other ship, so who's to say that they all looked alike? Still, that wasn't what was on Kim's mind at the time, what was going through her mind was the most obvious of questions: why was she there?

"Hello Kim." A kindly voice spoke to her.

Kim looked in the direction of the voice and found a young woman standing by one of the jack chairs and, much like Kim; she was wearing the same old gray and tattered clothes that everyone in Neo Zion wore. Her hair was short and black; she had a very thin nose, triangular chin, and deep blue eyes that held such great sadness to them as if they could cry an ocean. She smiled at Kim in a comforting way.

"Um…hi…" Kim uttered as she got out of the jack chair and approached the raven- haired woman, "Who are you?"

"Just a friend." The charcoal-haired woman smiled, "I bet everything that's happened has unsettled you, but you're nowhere near afraid, am I right?"

Kim just stared at the dark-haired woman in mild confusion, but she also felt a sense of security surrounding this 'friend'. It was similar to how Kim felt when she was around someone like Monique, or her parents, or Ron.

"You've got one fear, though," the dark-haired woman began, "and you're going to have to face it very soon, but you won't be alone."

"I'm not afraid of anything." Kim quickly replied in a shaking voice, "I'm Kim Possible and I can do anything. If you're talking about what the Oracle said about me dying after learning who I love, I'm not afraid of death."

It seemed strange that Kim would speak to this complete stranger in such a way as if she had been there the whole time. Or that she knew everything going on in Kim's head, almost like an imaginary friend to a child. Yet, this woman felt so familiar to Kim, at least that's what the voice in her head told her, but it was so far away that Kim couldn't pay any attention to it, only to continue on with the situation, never giving it any second thoughts about its abnormality.

"Cute." The raven-haired woman chuckled, "But I'm not talking about that. There will come a time when you will have to let go. Let go of yourself, let go of control, and let go of your one, and there will be nothing you can do except have faith. I only wanted to warn you, Kim."

"That won't happen." Kim shook her head and tried to emphasize the point with as much certainty as she could, "I would never let myself get in that position…ever."

"Never say never," the dark-haired woman smiled as she moved to leave, but then turned and approached Kim, coming within an inch of the young girl, so close that Kim wondered what was going to happen, "And…KP?"

Kim looked at the dark-haired woman, very confused since there was only one other person who called her that.

"What are you doing on the floor?"

Kim felt a little confused when the dark-haired woman asked this. It wasn't just the fact that she was asking that, but her voice seemed to change dramatically, sounding more and more like it belonged to Ron. That was when she had awoken once again. She blinked several times before she found herself back in her new bedroom at Neo Zion with Ron standing over her. Ron helped her get to her feet and she found out very quickly that she was on the floor next to the bed.

"I guess I rolled off the bed..." She said sheepishly and then yawned, "What time is it? Do you still want to go train?"

"It's around eight o'clock, KP." Ron reported, "But there's been a change. Is training in the morning good for you?"

Kim looked at Ron and found that he was smiling a little more than usual, at least more than usual since he came out of the Matrix. Kim hadn't seen Ron that happy since Bueno Nacho had opened in Middleton.

"Sure," Kim said, easily agreeing to the time offered, "But why the change?"

"Oh, you will not believe what happened while I was out, KP." Ron exclaimed very happily as if he had won a great prize, "Never in a thousand years would the Ron-man have seen this coming!"

"The Ron-man, huh?" Kim asked as she cocked an eyebrow and set her fists against her hips, "Must be big for you to talk in third person."

"Get this, KP." Ron smiled as he stuck out his chest to exude his own machismo, "Bon-Bon asked me, ME, Ron Stoppable, out on a date in the construct!"

Kim might as well have been a statue as Ron's words registered in her mind. The weird-dar was already blaring a warning at the very thought of Ron and Bonnie together. After the way Bonnie had always treated Ron, and then the 180 she pulled when he got that ninety-nine million dollar check from Bueno Nacho for Naco royalties, who could blame Kim for being suspicious? After all, Bonnie had treated Ron as if he was some kind of human cash card. Though, in this particular situation, Kim tried to figure it out logically as if it was some kind of math problem, but as she did she came to the same conclusions:

Bon-BonBonnie

Me, ME, Ron StoppableRon

Bonnie + Ron + Date in the ConstructSyntax Error (This is so wrong.)

"Ron…" Kim asked, very fearful as she stared at Ron with wide eyes, "You didn't say yes, did you?"

"KP…Kim." Ron smiled reassuringly, "You should know me by now."

"You did say yes, didn't you?" Kim sighed, rubbing her temples as the equation of Ron and Bonnie in the Construct kept playing over and over in her head and kept coming back to that same error. She had to say something to stop this violation of nature from happening, "Ron, you know she's up to something. If nothing else she just wants the glory of saying that she went out with The One!"

"Oh I see now." Ron smiled smugly as if he knew a secret that he would never tell anyone, "You're jealing over me and Bonnie."

The instant the words left Ron's mouth, something struck Kim very hard. It was a feeling that sent her blood temperature to dangerous levels and pressures like a boiler not being regulated. She didn't know what it was and she didn't even care to examine it. All she knew was that those six words sent her through the proverbial roof.

"Jealous?" Kim asked and then screamed, "I'M JEALOUS! OF BONNIE ROCKWALLER?"

"So not the drama." Ron said, mocking Kim's signature phrase and her voice.

Kim still felt her blood boiling within her. It made her weak at the knees, and her face so flushed and tingly. It was the overwhelming heat of the anger that she felt about all of it. The fact that Bonnie was going after Ron once again and that Ron was taking Bonnie's side. She came closer to Ron and held up one finger at him.

"One," she growled as her finger dug into his chest, "Do not mock me and steal my catchphrases. Two: The agents, the most powerful and feared programs in the Matrix, are after your head and you want to blow off necessary training to go on a date with Princess Bon-Bon?"

Ron looked at KP with very calm eyes, the likes of which Kim had never seen before on Ron. Usually when Kim was staring down Ron, he was easy to bend to her will, at least most of the time, yet when he looked back at her this time, his resolve seemed so much stronger than before.

"Well…" He began, only blushing slightly, "That's pretty much it, but it's no bi…." He stopped himself, remembering how much Kim hated the fact that he was using her catch phrases on her and in such a mocking way, "It's nothing major. Just one date, KP."

"Don't you 'just one date, KP' me, Ronald Stoppable!" Kim growled, grabbing his wrist and yanking him towards the door of their apartment like an angry teacher taking a disobedient child to the principal, "If you won't listen to me, I know someone you will listen to."

It wasn't too far, but Ron already felt emasculated by what Kim was doing to him. It was bad enough that Ron had humiliated himself inside the Matrix as a goofy sidekick to Kim, but now that the situation had changed, he hoped that this wouldn't happen again. Yet, it was and Ron was in the middle of it, and all he could think was that he wished that he wasn't. They came to a stop outside of Morpheus' and Niobe's apartment. Kim had let go of Ron's wrist, her blood still boiling with anger over the situation that she was apparently powerless to stop. She reached up and pounded on Morpheus' apartment door, ignoring the pain that was shooting into her hand as she waited for the door to open. Within a matter of seconds, out came Morpheus in a robe and rubbing the sand out of his eyes.

"Is there a problem, Kimberly, Ronald?" Morpheus said with a slight yawn in his voice.

"Yes." Kim stated impatiently, "There definitely is a problem. Ron and I had earlier agreed to practice tonight to help him learn to better control his abilities. He needs as much practice as he can get so he can be at his best against the Agents, but he's decided to blow off practice with me to go off on a date with a girl who only wants to be around him because of what he is and not who he is."

Ron felt truly insulted by all that had happened in the last few minutes. He had felt so good only a few minutes ago when Bonnie had asked him out and especially since no other girl had ever asked. Ron had always tried in desperation to ask a girl out, and every one of them had rejected him as if he was some piece of trash stuck to their shoe. Then, to have Bonnie ask him out seemed like such a blessing and then Kim had to spoil it, just like she always spoiled everything good that ever happened to him. And yet, he was the one who helped Kim get to Josh! Then, to make it worse, Kim still seemed to treat Ron like a kid as if she knew what was best for him instead of letting him make his own decisions. All of these thoughts compounded upon each other until Morpheus spoke up and made the situation a little better, at least for Ron.

"Alright." Morpheus nodded as he took in Kim's information, "First off, you are right, Kimberly. Ronald does need to have his abilities mastered as soon as possible."

Kim turned around to Ron with a very smug look on her face as though she was about to give a backhand slap against Ron's chest as if to say 'You see, I was right all along.' She turned back to Morpheus to hopefully get more news that would work in her favor, but then found out something completely different.

"But," Morpheus then added, "I do not see the harm in him having a night of rest with a friend, who might not be as shallow as you think."

"Friend…?" Kim uttered, feeling very sick to her stomach about the news that had shattered her boosted confidence in her correct assumption, "Not…as…shallow…?" She paused for a moment and looked at Ron, who had that same look that she had only seconds ago, that he knew he was right and that he would get his way for the first time.

"Ok…FINE." Kim finally gave over to Morpheus' decision, not just because he was the commanding officer on the _Neb II,_ but mostly because she couldn't stand the thought of Ron and Bonnie on a… a… a DATE for one more second. To think, that she had hoped Morpheus would take her side against Ron being with Bonnie. She got right in Ron's face and shoved that index finger into Ron's chest again, "Go on." She snarled, "Go and have fun with your little Bon-Bon! I really don't care what you do, and when you have Agents breathing down your neck, you can have your little Bon-Bon help you, because you won't get any help from me! Good night!"

Kim stomped away down the hall to her apartment and slammed the door behind her loud enough to echo back through all the apartments of Neo Zion. With the echo dying down, there was a silence between Ron and Morpheus about what had transpired. It seemed so weird to them both, that Kim was acting like a woman insanely jealous and yet she kept proclaiming that she was simply Ron's best friend.

Neither one of them saw Niobe coming up from behind Morpheus.

"You know," She chuckled disappointedly at Morpheus, "For someone so obsessed with the future and prophesies; you can be blind as a bat to what's happening in the present."

"What do you mean, Niobe?" Morpheus asked.

Niobe gave Morpheus that look that most wives give their husbands when they are asked a stupid question.

"For that little display, Morpheus," Niobe proclaimed, "you can sleep on the Neb tonight."

She then laid a hand on his back and shoved him out the door of the apartment. Morpheus heard the door slam, looked at it and then back at Ron rather, confused about what had just transpired. As they looked at each other, they asked the same question that men ask themselves when women do something that they can't understand.

"What was that about?"

To be continued…


	6. Resurrections Chapter 6

**The Kimmatrix: Matrix Resurrections**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and Turles**

**Chapter 6: Remembrance**

"_Memory is not an instrument of exploring the past, but its theatre."_

- Walter Benjamin

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

The night had progressed onward, and while all of Neo Zion was asleep, there were a few still awake. One of them was Ron Stoppable, returning to the apartment that he shared with Kim. He was dizzy with excitement over what had happened only thirty minutes ago and was drunk with feelings he had never felt before. He knew that they existed; he just didn't know about them first hand. It was so much that Ron had to hold onto the guard rail as he replayed the events of the evening over and over in his head. Even though it was one of the greatest nights of his life, Ron just wanted to crawl into bed, sleep, and hopefully dream about the night again.

The buzz didn't stop Ron from finding the apartment, after all, he did get himself lost and un-lost in the maze called Neo Zion. So, within only a few short hours, he was able to figure out where everything was.

He unlocked and opened the apartment door quietly, hoping not to disturb Kim, whom he assumed was already asleep. He came into the dark apartment with the thin ray of light from the cracked door piercing the darkness, turned around, and closed the door, shutting out the ray of light. He felt that he knew the apartment well enough to feel his way back to his bedroom, but before he could take another step, he heard something.

"Good morning, Ron." An all too familiar voice called out from the dark in a menacing tone. At the moment the voice registered, the lights turned on, and Ron saw Kim in the kitchen with a very peeved look on her face.

"Oh," Ron uttered as he rubbed the back of his head, knowing that he was in six feet under, "You're up early, Kim." He smiled sheepishly, hoping to charm his way out of the immense amount of trouble that he was in.

"And you're up late." Kim replied as she walked out of the kitchen and faced Ron with crossed arms over her chest. She looked at Ron with a glare that could've scared Shego into submission, "Do you have **_any_** idea what time it is?"

Ron knew this kind of trouble; he had seen his own father being pulled over by policemen for speeding. Later on in life, Ron had heard how to handle being questioned by a policeman after being pulled over: just keep looking forward and make careful guesses until it's found out what the accusation is for.

"Um…" Ron gave his careful guess, "Four-thirty?"

"Try six forty-five." Kim growled as she approached Ron with a very hateful fire in her green eyes. It was the kind of look that made Ron feel sick to the pit of his stomach. He was so nervous that he had lost all connection to the buzz he had only a seconds ago.

"Kim," he began, his mouth feeling very dry and his skin wet from the cold sweat he'd developed, "I…I can explain."

"I know." Kim had cut him off and made her explanation, "I came to check on you an hour ago and you were well entertained in the Construct with your _Bon-Bon_." She said in such a snippy way as though she meant to grunt out the words 'entertained' and 'your Bon-Bon', signaling her extreme disgust for them.

Then again, something had happened to Kim that night. She woke up around five in the morning, and she knew that Ron wasn't home because his bed was still made. So, acting on a hunch, she went to Trin Zion to find that Jack Room that she had heard Morpheus talk about, that place for people to connect to the Matrix, to train, and to entertain. It was there that Kim found Ron and Bonnie, and she checked the program they were in. Yet, nothing she had seen or done could have prepared her for what she saw on that screen. She saw them, Ron…her best friend…and…Bonnie…her school rival..._together_. Both of them so close, so intimate, and in such a way that Kim felt the goop she had eaten earlier rise in her throat and deposit itself on the Jack Room floor.

"Oh, I see." Ron grunted, feeling his own blood heating, "So, you came to check on me, huh? More like an eavesdropper?" The blood began to boil within Ron as he began to understand the situation a little further in his perspective.

"It was almost six in the morning, Ron." Kim said in a very condescending tone like an overbearing know-it-all, "You are my best friend, and for some reason I can't put my finger on right now, I actually might care whether you were lying in a gutter somewhere…dead!"

The nervousness the Ron felt seconds ago had vanished in the heat of what he felt next. He was being treated like such a little kid, as if his own mother didn't do enough of that. As he thought about it, Ron noticed that he was treated so much better in Neo Zion than he ever was back at Middleton; everyone was so much nicer to him, everyone…except Kim. She still treated him like her goofy sidekick and the fact that he was The One still hadn't registered with her like it did with everyone else in Neo Zion.

"I already have a mother, Kim; I don't need another one here." Ron growled back in a tone that Kim had never heard him use before on her, "I'm a big boy after all, and while we're discussing this; why is it that when it comes to my interest in girls, you get defensive, while I never said a damned thing about you being on that date with Josh _Monkey_ while I was risking life and limb to get that cure for you!"

Kim remembered that night very well; it was the date with Josh Mankey…her first date. It also happened to be the time that Drakken had sprayed Kim with a plant enzyme that made a part of her disappear every time she blushed. While she went on her date with Josh, Ron was half a world away and risking it all to get the same plant to cure Kim's ailment. Ron managed to cure Kim, but he never stopped her from finishing her date with Josh and that still burned deep within Ron, despite how happy he looked for Kim.

Kim immediately retorted, "This isn't about Josh and me. This is about you and Bonnie."

Ron crossed his arms, feeling his anger growing with each new frustration. Everything began to compound as he thought about it more and more, like a fire having gasoline thrown on it.

"At least Bonnie trusts me and really cares about me." Ron sneered at Kim, "Unlike some people."

"Yeah." Kim chuckled in a very sarcastic way, "Like she really likes you."

Ron turned his back to Kim, "She asked me out, didn't she?" He asked in a very snooty sort of way.

Having Ron's back turned to her only annoyed Kim even further. It was bad enough that he wasn't listening to her, but now he was intentionally ignoring her. She felt so furious, but she still continued to try and prove her point in the face of such blind ignorance.

"She asked you because you are The One; it has nothing to do with you." She replied, hoping it would open Ron's eyes to the truth.

"Oh yeah?" Ron asked back snobbishly.

"Like anyone would really ask you out for any other reason." Kim answered back as she turned her back on Ron, and as she did, the full effect of her words hit her. She realized all too late that her anger had forced her to blurt out something she didn't want to say. In her mind, she wanted to say 'like Bonnie would ask you out for any other reason', but she blurted out a generalization in her fury. She raised her hand to her mouth in dread and turned back to face Ron.

For Ron, the damage was so much greater. Even though he wouldn't admit it, Ron was more emotionally fragile than Kim. She always was so much stronger than he, and even though Ron had faced such cutting remarks from total strangers…he could handle it. It was the fact that it came from Kim that made it cut to the bone. It seemed so unbelievable that Ron still couldn't believe what his ears told him.

As Kim turned to face him, she could see the damage that she caused on Ron's face. His skin was pale, even his freckles, and his eyes--- those pretty, brown eyes like those of a puppy dog; they were already shrink-wrapped in tears. Ron Stoppable was truly hurt, cut down to the proverbial flesh and bones by the words of his best friend.

"Oh Ron…" Kim gasped, her voice on the verge of crying too, "I…I didn't mean that…"

Ron reached up and brushed away the already leaking tears. The tears may have been flowing, but Ron wasn't crying at all, and with dry eyes he glared down at Kim. The look he carried in those brown eyes was that of a person filled with eons of grief, hatred, sorrow, and agony.

"You said it, Kim. So you must have meant it." He snarled at Kim, trying his hardest to keep his composure, to hold onto whatever piece of dignity he still had after the years of women stripping it from him. Ron stomped to his bedroom door, each stomp like the echo of a monster in a child's nightmare. Before he went into his bedroom, he stopped at the door and looked back at Kim, his eyes filling up once again with tears.

"I know that Bon can be hateful to you sometimes," Ron stated to Kim in that un-Ron voice again, "But I see what brought that on now!"

With that last statement, Ron gave Kim one last hateful glare and then went into his room, slamming the door and sending out its deafening, hollow bang.

"Ron…" Kim whispered, her voice breaking as her own tears started to flow, "…I really…really didn't mean it…"

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

The morning rolled on, and while the damage had already been done between Kim and Ron, another proverbial storm was brewing between two old rivals. It was in one of the many offices of high ranking officers and councilors within Neo Zion; it was also one that Morpheus had been to many times in the past, though, it wasn't because of issues of regulation; one would say it was more personal. Morpheus came into the office that he had been to so many times before and stood at attention in front of his superior officer.

"You called, Admiral Locke?" Morpheus asked in a soldier's tone.

Locke had advanced in rank from simple commander to the rank of Grand Admiral in charge of the Zion Hovership Fleet. The years hadn't been too kind to him; he had lost a good amount of hair above his brow while the rest had turned gray around the sides of his head, which implied greater age than he actually had. One could even go so far as to say that as his bitterness of the past grew, it manifested itself through every lost and gray hair along with every wrinkle on his face. Admiral Locke looked up at Morpheus, his face wrinkled even further with anger at him.

"I just want to know one thing, Captain Morpheus. What in blazes goes on inside that head of yours!" Admiral Locke barked loudly at Morpheus as he stood up from his desk. "It was bad enough that you helped that boy," Locke sneered, "but you freed him from the Matrix, as well? Do you realize you, quite possibly, have single handedly destroyed the truce that has lasted for sixteen years?"

Morpheus, as always, wasn't surprised at Admiral Locke's anger. He had gotten the same abuse from this man since day one. It seemed to have gotten worse in the past sixteen years, probably ever since Niobe had left Locke to go back to Morpheus. Being calm as usual, Morpheus kept his neutral demeanor in the face of such rage and gave his answer.

"He is only a boy, Admiral." Morpheus tried to explain calmly, hoping to set his passions aside, "He is a boy meant for great things; things that do not include being murdered by Agents."

"I've spoken with the machine representatives, Morpheus." Locke retorted, his anger coming down and starting to border upon terror, "Do you know what that boy is? Do you? He's not Neo, Morpheus! For God's sakes, he's Smith! Have you forgotten what that monster did?"

How could Morpheus or anyone close to Neo have forgotten? Even with a veneer of sixteen years, the memory…or the nightmare of him still remained as fresh as the stench of rotting meat. In his heart, he was shocked at this news of Ron being Smith. If that was the case, then why did the Oracle say he was the One? He wondered if it was some kind of lie that the Machines concocted to get rid of the One. Then he realized something that made sense, Ron had told Morpheus what the Oracle had told him, and what he said fit the facts.

"I have not forgotten, Admiral." Morpheus replied, trying to sound unaffected by the news, "And you're only half right. He's part Smith and he's part Neo. That is what the Oracle has said."

"The Oracle also told you that Neo was destined to stop the war." Locke refuted with dark sarcasm.

"And he did." Morpheus answered back with a slight smile on his face, thinking how even though Neo didn't do as he was "meant" to do; he still found a way to end the war.

"And what happens if the Smith side takes over?" Locke asked, darkly mocking Morpheus for having all the answers with his prophecies and messiahs, "He should be given over to the machines and put down! We cannot risk another Smith!"

"'Put down', Admiral?" Morpheus asked, sounding almost horrified at what he had heard, "You speak of the boy as if he is a rabid animal. Ronald may be a child, but he is still a human being! You cannot expect me to allow him to be turned over to them to be dissected like a lab rat because they don't understand why he's here?"

Admiral Locked stepped back for a moment. He had never heard Morpheus speak to him like that before. It was something that he would never understand. Then again, Locke was a soldier and a concrete thinking soldier only relies on the facts; the abstract was lost on him. That was how Locke thought and there was no way to change him.

"And you wonder why she left you…" Morpheus uttered without giving a second thought to being thrown into the brig, because he knew…no, he believed in something Locke would never understand, "Ronald Stoppable is part of my crew now, and my responsibility. If you would wish for his death, you will have to bring about my own first."

He turned and walked out of Locke's office with the declaration still very fresh in his mind as well as Locke's. With Morpheus gone, Locke just stood there behind his desk with his dropped in anger and shame.

"God damn it, Morpheus!" He cursed, "You will never change!"

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

After storming, well storming really wasn't the word for it; it more a determinedly calm stride out of Admiral Locke's office, Morpheus made his way to the Mess Hall. It was a place similar to a cafeteria, at least in the conventional sense; the room was circular with two exposed levels like the walkways of a two-story mall. Set up to the exposed and main levels were tables and benches, all of them looking old and beat up. Yet, even with such old looks to them, the people still went from their tables to the food lines that dispensed the white goop and water. Even though people could get food in their homes, the Mess hall was still built; maybe it was because they still needed that feeling of company when they were eating.

Morpheus entered the Mess Hall and looked out at the crowd of Zionites all conversing at tables, waiting in line, going back and forth from tables to whatever destination they had in mind. He saw a hand raising and waving him over; his eyes fixed upon it like a ship to a lighthouse. He followed it until he came to a large, circular table where the crews of the _Neb II_ and the _Mad Dog_ sat. There were Niobe, Ghost, and Link sitting around Kim while across the table were Captain Barkin with Tres (Bonnie) sitting on Ron's lap like a sleazy lap dancer, and last, but not least was Tater Salad (Brick). They all welcomed Morpheus to their table as he took his seat on the bench.

"How did it go, Morpheus?" She asked seeing the look on Morpheus' face and knowing what it meant.

Morpheus shook his head and sighed, "It could have gone better, but it has gone worse before."

"So could you vague that up for us, sir?" Kim asked jokingly as she tried not to look across the table to Ron with Bonnie in his lap. His precious Bon-Bon…it always made Kim feel nauseous when she would think about last night (or early that morning to be a little more accurate) and what she saw on the screen. She forced herself not to turn her head to look at them, not just because of Bonnie, but because she couldn't look Ron in the face after what she said, and who could blame her? It was a good thing that Kim didn't look, because Bonnie was smiling in the most devilish of ways when she saw how disgustedly sad Kim was.

"I'm sorry, Kimberly; I cannot tell you. It is a… delicate issue." Morpheus paused, and then turned to Ron, remembering Locke's exact, cold-hearted words about another human being, "But I can advise you, Ronald. Do not travel alone in Neo Zion. Please, for your own safety."

Ron nodded, noting the very ominous warning that Morpheus had in his own voice.

"Oh, he won't have a problem with that." Bonnie giggled like a school girl as she wrapped her arms around Ron's neck.

While across the table, Kim was secretly cursing herself for looking in their direction. She saw, in that one instant, how much Bonnie was enjoying herself around Ron, while Ron's eyes were always on Bonnie in a dreamy gaze, never looking away. Kim could feel the goop rising in her throat as she turned away and shut her eyes, wishing with all her heart that she hadn't seen what she did.

Of course, the ones sitting closest did notice Kim's expressions towards both Ron and Bonnie. Link, Ghost, and Niobe couldn't help seeing such despair in Kim's eyes. Their attention was drawn away when Morpheus stood up and made an announcement to both crews.

"Now, if you'll excuse me." He said in his captains' voice, "I must prepare for the celebration tonight and I suggest you all do the same. Expect a long night."

"Hehehe…" Brick laughed, "Allllriiight!"

While the crews got up and went their separate ways, Niobe caught up to Kim. Perhaps it was just the pain that she had sensed from her last night or it might have been her intuition telling her that something deeper was wrong with her. Then again, it seemed like a good opportunity to talk to her and offer her help.

"Hey Kimmie!" Niobe called, "Where are you going?"

Kim stopped and turned to face Niobe, and in the light of the dim fluorescents of the Mess Hall, the former captain could see Kim was on the verge of tears, but was desperately trying to hold them back. Kim was trying to hold onto her old image of being a strong woman.

"Just got some steam to work off." Kim said coldly, blinking quickly to keep the tears from spilling out onto her cheeks, "I figured I'd work out in the Construct at Trin Zion before I get ready for tonight."

"Want me to come with you?" Niobe asked, greatly concerned as she moved closer to the anguished teen.

Kim quickly shook her head the instant that Niobe asked, "Nah, I have a lot to think about." Kim answered rather weakly.

"Ok, but remember to turn on the safety settings." Niobe instructed just like a mother telling her child to take a sweater in case it got colder that night. As she left to join Morpheus, Niobe had to look back and as she did she couldn't help feeling such pity for the young woman. The answers were so obvious, but, like Morpheus, she was blind to them. She turned back, caught up with her husband, and headed back home to get ready for the celebration.

Kim, on the other hand, smiled; despite how painful it was to perform such a simple action. She then shook her head at how it was so similar, her discussion with Niobe; it seemed to ring back to her mother and father. She did think about going to see them both, but then she thought that they'd give similar answers to what Morpheus had told her. That there was no harm in Ron being with another girl… 'unless that other girl is Bonnie', Kim thought. The more Kim thought about this, the more the bile in her throat began to rise and the more she needed to get to Trin Zion to blow off some serious steam.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Kim had arrived at the Jack Room of Trin Zion, the very same place where she saw Bonnie and Ron together in the Construct. Her stomach turned as the thought of it once again came up like the meal in her stomach. She desperately needed to vent and the Jack Room was the place for it.

She was only on the first floor of the circular enclosure, with the ceiling going ever upward into the exposed floors above her. The Jack Room was the Barnes and Noble of Neo Zion with all the available Jack Chairs, but, even though she wanted to forget everything, something made her go to the second floor, and back to the chairs that she found Ron and Bonnie sitting in. It seemed odd to Kim's logic that she would wish to return to such a place of pain, but then the heart is never logical.

She found the very chair that Ron was in just that morning, and in an odd way Kim was thankful that the chair was vacant. She climbed into it and allowed the automatic systems of the chair to plug her in. She looked at the touch-screen above her head, chose the program, and pressed the button that read "load". Kim's eyes immediately closed as the program began. She could sense the bright light that came on as she opened her eyes and found herself in the sparring program. Immediately, she felt a light tickle at the back of her neck; she reached for it to find her long ginger hair had returned. She stroked it like a long lost pet, smiling and thinking that at least her hair would always return to her.

She looked out into the dojo of the sparring program; it was exactly the same as the one she saw on the _Neb II_ when she and Ron were freed from the Matrix. Though in the center of the room there was something that Kim requested when she was loading the program. It was something called a "wooden man" dummy, a solid, wooden pillar about as tall as a person with wooden pegs sticking out at different angels to simulate a person's arms and legs.

Kim approached the wooden man and began a series of punches, kicks, blocks, and combos. She started out slowly, but grew faster and faster with every thought that came to mind about Ron and…Bonnie. The chunks rose in her throat once again, but instead of swallowing them back down, she fought harder and harder. Her punches, blocks, kicks, and combos grew faster and harder the more she thought about it until she couldn't take it anymore. All of it with…the Bonnie and Ron…relationship…

SNAP!

Her punch broke off a wooden arm of the dummy, but Kim didn't care anymore. She imagined Bonnie's face over the top of the wooden pillar where its face would be. Thinking about her rival sent Kim into a berserk frenzy, making her arms and legs nothing more than a blur to the average person's vision. Each of her punches and kicks broke a wooden 'arm' off, and with each snap, Kim wished it could have been…her…

Once all the pegs were broken off, Kim stopped to catch her breath. She felt herself on the verge of tears again with all that had happened, but she fiercely held them back. She had forced the tears back like water behind a dam when she heard a voice call out to her that she hadn't wanted or needed to hear…at all.

"Not bad, Kimmie." The smug voice of Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller said in that Californian sarcasm, "But you know, wooden men don't hit back."

Kim made a quiet sniffle as she said to Bonnie in a very dark and almost challenging voice, "Have a nice date with Ron…Bon-Bon?" She asked without looking back at the high and mighty bitch that approached her.

"Oh, beyond nice, Kim." Bonnie said in a very genuine, dreamy tone as if she wanted to rub Kim's face in her happiness, "I don't understand why you didn't grab him up while you had the chance."

Kim's blood began to pound in her ears once again, and, even though she had spent so much of her energy on the wooden man, she couldn't take it from Bonnie anymore. Ever since the day that Kim made the Cheer Squad, Bonnie always had given her grief in any shape, form, or fashion, but her being with Ron was the lowest. Still, she had to answer Bonnie's statement. She turned to see Bonnie copying her once again, wearing an identical black gi. She even noticed Bonnie's "Matrix" hair was longer than it really was; it made Kim feel like Bonnie was moving in on her life, as if she, Kim, did not exist. She looked Bonnie straight in the eye as the two began to circle around the dojo sparring floor like roosters in a cock fight, each insult and jibe a peck at each other.

"Best friends don't date best friends." Kim stated, feeling self-righteous, "It's an unwritten rule, and by the way…I don't like people using my friends like you did."

"Oh?" Bonnie retorted, smiling devilishly and reveling in her contentment, "Is what I did any different than using a friend as a decoy?"

That statement hit Kim pretty hard. Bonnie was right; Kim had used Ron several times. He was always the distraction and nothing else on the mission, but the truth was Ron wasn't as skilled as Kim when it came to the mission. Still, as a team, they always came through, but Ron always had a choice.

"I never made Ron do anything he didn't want to do." Kim snapped back as the two of them continued to circle one another in their stand-off before Kim added one last thought to her retort, "And Ron, surely, had no idea of what he was getting into last night."

Bonnie's smile continued to grow more and more demonic and clownish as she kept her eyes fixed on her rival.

"Oh trust me, Kimmie." She said, still reveling in her own sadistic joy. "Ron knew…**exactly**…what he was doing…and he knew it…very…very…_well_…"

Kim's nausea rose again, her blood heated to the point of combustion, and she couldn't hold back the tears. They started pouring down her cheeks like twin waterfalls.

She grinded her teeth as she spat out at Bonnie through her tears, "I hate you!"

"Mutual." Bonnie hissed back, still smiling that evil clown smile, "Now, are we going to circle each other, fight, or should I leave you to cry your little eyes out?"

Kim answered silently by jumping high into the air of the dojo, and locking her eyes on her target; her hatred of that target was so much that she no longer felt her own body. All around her, the world slowed down so that the heel of her foot slammed into the top of Bonnie's head. Kim landed quickly onto her feet to watch Bonnie fall flat onto her face, and her tears dried up instantly. She felt such pleasure seeing Bonnie on the ground of the dojo, crawling like the worm she was. It was an almost sadistic pleasure, and, at that moment, Kim welcomed it.

"You have no idea how long I've waited to do that to you." Kim said, smiling down at Bonnie, who got on her hands and knees.

"Same here." Bonnie snarled through her smile as she whipped her body around, bringing her foot against Kim's legs, and sending her opponent tumbling to the ground. Even though Kim knew that there was so much meaning in her 'duel' with Bonnie, she felt such a rush, much like the rush of the challenge she had in the past against foes like Shego and Monkey Fist.

"Not bad…Bon-Bon." Kim growled through her faux-smile as she quickly got back to her feet.

"You aren't so bad yourself…" Bonnie smiled even more, "…KP."

"DON'T YOU EVER CALL ME THAT!" Kim screamed as she flew across the dojo floor, bringing her fist back, and following through to Bonnie's face. The punch had such force that Bonnie thought her neck would to snap, but instead her whole body followed into its motion, and she spiraled five or six times into the air like a rag doll being thrown from a swing, before she hit the dojo floor with a great thud.

Bonnie got to her knees, tasting something salty on her lips. She reached up with a closed fist to brush it away and looked to find blood. At that point, it became personal for Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller. She looked to the sword racks on the far side of the dojo, as did Kim, and it didn't take very long for either to figure out the other's next move. The two girls ran at Matrix speed for the sword rack, their hands reaching out for different swords. Kim reached for a Japanese Katana while Bonnie drew a Chinese Jian. With swords drawn and scabbards discarded, the bitter rivals moved to a stand off as they went back to the sparring ground floor, outstretching one foot at a time with their eyes never breaking contact.

It seemed rather ironic in the swords that Kim and Bonnie had chosen. The Japanese Katana was built for speed and grace, to slice and dice through its target, while the Jian was designed to be a strong, stabbing weapon. The match had come down to fluid grace vs. sheer strength between Kim and Bonnie.

"I've waited a long time to put you in your place, Kim." Bonnie said, holding onto her Jian with one hand.

"So many have tried, Bonnie." Kim smirked as she tightened her grip on her katana, "So few have conquered."

Kim raised the katana above her head and dove for Bonnie. The two of them met in the complete stalemate that came with being a person's equal in every way. With each thrust, neither one of them landed a single blow on each other, to skin or cloth, until, at one point in the duel, their attacks had struck their gi. Kim was first to land a cut and Bonnie's left sleeve came off. Bonnie then disposed of Kim's right sleeve. On and on the shredding of clothes went, until the two of them were left fighting in nothing but their underwear. Kim's was red and frilly, accenting the best parts of her body, while Bonnie's was black and sleek, her thong showing off her shapely ass. Even though they were stripped down to their essentials, they weren't fixing to stop the duel to re-attire themselves. The two of them came up against one another in a spark-spitting, sword lock and were staring each other down.

"I see what this is about, Kim." Bonnie smirked, "You're jealing." She said as she pushed her Jian harder against Kim's katana.

"Jealing on what?" Kim grunted while trying to gain some leverage against Bonnie, "You? You and Ron? As if!"

"You are, Kim." Bonnie laughed while pushing even harder, "You want to know the truth? Sleeping with Ron last night had nothing to do with him being the One. I know that's what you were thinking. When it comes to your feelings on the subject, I can read you like an old newspaper!"

Kim's face melted into a dazed shock at what she heard, her grip starting to loosen around the tsuba (hand guard) and nakago (handle) of her katana while Bonnie smiled even brighter as if she knew that victory was hers.

"Don't get me wrong," Bonnie said, almost apologizing, "The geek was better than I thought he would be, sure beat the hell out of Brick and Josh, but that wasn't what it was about either. Do you know what it was really all about, Kimmie?"

Kim felt torn; on the one hand, she didn't want to know why Bonnie was doing all these things, while on the other hand, she was starting to figure out all of it, and wanted to know if she was right, though, it was another hard blow to Kim when Bonnie named Josh and Brick, 'What a slut.', she thought. Yet, the answer to Bonnie's question…Kim wasn't at all ready to hear the answer.

"It was all about you!" Bonnie cackled almost like Shego when she would taunt Kim, "The whole world knows your most treasured possession is your friendship with Ron. You revel in the fact that you mean something to him, but you know what, Kimmie-cub? Now I mean more to him than you do! After all, what's a friend…compared to a lover?"

The final emotional blow was felt by Kim. Her suspicions were right about Bonnie; she had had an ulterior motive for being with him, but she never expecting something like what she heard. Bonnie and Ron together only to get back at Kim? She could feel a proverbial chasm opening underneath her feet and her heart sunk to the bottom and shattered. As her heart broke, her grip on the katana loosened and the blade fell to the floor. With the blade lost, so was Kim's will; her arms fell to her sides, and Bonnie saw her moment of opportunity. She used her Jian to flip Kim's katana into her free hand, and with Kim's will broken, she reveled in her close handed victory. She held the Jian and the katana at Kim's throat in a pincer shape, and held them there for a second, letting Kim feel the edges of the blades against her skin.

Kim no longer cared; she saw Bonnie's point: what's a friend compared to a lover? She no longer saw any reason to fight, because how can anyone live without a single friend in the world? She closed her eyes, out of expectation the temporary pain the swords would bring before the program would reload itself. Though Kim was also trying her hardest to get Bonnie's voice out of her head before the end would come.

As Bonnie brought the swords away to strike the killing blow, a voice called out.

"KP means more to me than you ever will, Bonnie."

Hearing that voice, Kim's heart rose out of the depths of that chasm, and reassembled itself in her chest where it flew with the greatest of hopes. She opened her eyes to see that Bonnie's weapons could no longer be called such. They looked more like a metal ice cream cone with the way they swirled around each other. Bonnie dropped the combined swords in confusion, looking in the same direction that gave Kim a wide smile.

"Ron?" They both asked in very different tones, Kim's being that of relief and Bonnie's of surprised shock.

Over at the right side of the dojo, near the sparring floor was Ron in his white gi with an extremely serious look in his eyes. Kim did feel afraid of that expression, but was relieved when she saw it was being directed at Bonnie, who was trying to act very innocent about the actions she took.

"How…" She uttered as she tried to take an innocent, sexy, and seductive pose towards Ron, "How much did you hear, Ronniekins?"

As she got within arm's distance of Ron, he gave a very angry look at her.

"That's Ron to you, Bonnie." He scolded the deceiver, who tried her best innocent smile on him, but he wasn't buying it, "I heard enough. Thanks for a night to remember, but after hearing that, you won't get another."

Ron moved past Bonnie and towards Kim, his eyes containing that Ron-sweetness that remained despite all that had happened to him. Bonnie, on the other hand, saw that she had lost once again, but what hit her the hardest wasn't that she lost to Kim, she had dealt with that several times. It was the fact that she lost…to Ron Stoppable. Of all people to lose to, she lost to him. She stepped back, seeing Ron approach Kim, and felt the results of her actions sink down onto her shoulders and how it didn't work out the way she wanted.

"Log out!" She called out as her digital self faded and melted into that green falling code that consumed her body and vanished into nothing.

With Bonnie gone, Ron came over to Kim.

"You alright, KP?" He asked with that unique Ron-ness that he always had.

Kim felt so happy to see him, but she had to ask him something.

"I thought you were mad at me." Kim said meekly, hoping that Ron would explain his actions to break up with Bonnie in such a way.

"I am, but you're still my best friend." Ron smiled, "Nobody messes with my friends."

"Even your love..." Kim stopped to correct herself as she looked away from Ron's face to the dojo sparring floor, "…girlfriend?"

"Girlfriends come and go, KP." Ron smiled as he reached out to Kim's chin to bring her gaze back to his face. Kim looked up to see Ron smiling in that old goofy grin that he had back when they were in the Matrix, "You went through boyfriends before and did that break us up?"

Kim's heart flew in her chest with such joy that she didn't say a word; she just reached up and threw her arms around Ron's neck. The tears came unbidden, and she buried her face into Ron's chest, weeping into his gi. However, this time, she wasn't crying because she was sad; she was crying because she was so happy. She thought that she had lost her best friend for all time, but she had regained him, all within the same day. For Kim Possible, the past twenty-four hours were an emotional roller coaster, but she felt so happy with her arms around Ron's neck and her face in his chest.

"Thanks." She said through her tears, "I don't know what I'd do without you, Ron…especially now."

"Best buds forever, right, KP?" Ron asked as he reached around, wrapped his arms around Kim's waist, and lifted her into the air in his bear hug. Kim let out a small, high pitched yell when Ron did that. A yell that she hadn't let out since she was a little girl being lifted onto her fathers shoulders. Kim then felt the pressure that Ron was creating on her ribcage as she squeezed.

"Right, right." Kim choked out as her tears dried after seeing and feeling that the old Ron was back, "Now put me down, silly! I…can't breathe!"

"Do you think that's air you're breathing?" Ron quipped as he loosened his hug and brought Kim back down to her feet, The two of them had a good laugh together until Kim saw a rather sad look in Ron's eyes.

"You ok, Ron?" Kim asked, rather concerned for her newly-returned best friend.

"I just came out of the first and shortest relationship I've ever had, Kim." Ron told rather sadly, "It lasted only half a day."

"Bonnie wasn't worth it." Kim smiled sympathetically as she laid a hand upon Ron's shoulder, "Also…about what I said this morning…I really didn't mean it, not at all. A girl would have to be insane to pass you up and I know you'll make some lucky girl very happy, Ron."

"Thanks, KP." Ron smiled as he straightened up to look at Kim, and that was when it hit him. In the heat of his realization of Bonnie's betrayal, he failed to notice Kim was in her intimates. The shape of her body in them made him blush slightly and caused a small stir from his groin. He cleared his throat as he looked in the opposite direction from his best friend.

"What is it, Ron?" Kim noticed Ron's blushing.

Ron cleared his throat again, "You might wanna cover up, KP."

Kim looked down at herself, and, realizing that she was in her undergarments, she let out a short yelp, and tried to cover herself, but she stopped when she realized that there was no need for embarrassment in front of Ron. After all, she had seen him in his boxer shorts quite often whenever he lost his pants, of course she didn't think much of it then, but in that present state she found something humorously erotic about it. She then set her hands upon her hips and looked up at Ron.

"It's not like it's your first time seeing a girl in her intimates." She smirked, "Is it, Ron?"

"Nope." Ron said as he shook his head and took one last look at Kim's frilly lingerie, "Besides this stuff looks a lot better on you than it did Bonnie."

"Thanks, Ron." Kim smiled.

"That reminds me why I was sent here." Ron added in that goofy Ron voice, "Niobe sent me to find you; she has some old dress robes she wants you to try on for the celebration this evening."

Kim rubbed her chin, "I wonder what she's got for me."

"Let's go find out." Ron smiled, "Shall we?"

"After you." Kim nodded.

"Log out." Ron commanded as his digital body turned to code and vanished.

"Log out." Kim commanded and followed Ron back to the real world.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

"I don't know about this." Kim said as she stood in front of the mirror in Morpheus and Niobe's apartment, looking at her reflection with a little leeriness about what she was wearing. It was a robe, though it seemed to be much more than that. It was a pair of white, loose-fitting pants, kind of like what those Arabian belly dancers wear when their shaking their groove things for their Sultan. The top was a sash that went around her neck and down into her pants where it was held. She felt so exposed in it since the sash only covered her breasts. The majority of her back, all of her arms, and so on were exposed to the slightly cool air. Kim still felt a little odd about wearing it since the sash wasn't too transparent, but one could see the shadows of her nipples sticking out through the material if one looked hard enough.

"It was a friend of mine's," Niobe said as she adjusted the sash around Kim's neck and breasts, "A good friend who's no longer with us. I'm sure she'd like you to have it."

"Isn't it a little revealing?" She asked, voicing her concerns, and feeling a little heat coming into her cheeks, "I mean…aren't children going to be there."

"No, dear." Niobe explained, "The kids have their own celebration at the school. The celebration we're going to is all adults. Most of the time, it breaks into a rave, so it might not be a good place for young ones, but you are right. It is a little revealing. Though Neo never complained about it and I doubt very much Ron will either."

"We're not like that…" Kim blushed even further, the heat going across her whole face, thinking about what Niobe might be thinking about, "We're just best friends. That's all we've ever been and all we'll ever be."

"Riiiiiiighttttt." Niobe smiled.

The conversation between Niobe and Kim was interrupted by a small knock at the door and that familiar voice coming through.

"Is everyone decent?" Ron's voice asked.

"We're fine, Ron." Niobe announced.

With that, the door opened and Ron and Morpheus walked in. Ron was wearing one of Morpheus' old dress robes that seemed to just drape from him like a curtain on a narrow rod. Compared to Morpheus, Ron was a rather lanky man, so the shoulders of the robe just draped off the side, and the neck looked like it had been stretched like a turtleneck shirt. It was so loose that Ron had to readjust it a few times before he could set it in a suitable place. Once he found that it was in the best place possible, he turned to look at Kim in that loose set of pants and sash. Instantly his face turned crimson, the heat covering his face, and the beating of his heart was in his ears.

Morpheus, on the other hand, looked at Kim and smiled.

"I see you gave her Trinity's favorite dress," Morpheus observed, "She would have liked that. You look…amazing in them Kimberly."

"Thank you, sir." Kim curtsied with the extra material of her loose pants before turning to Ron, "So Ron, what'dya think?" She asked as she twirled around in it, giving Ron a full head to toe look at the dress like a model strutting down the catwalk at a fashion show.

Ron couldn't help staring at the different parts of Kim's body in that dress. It seemed so enticing all around, that it gave him that same feeling that he did when he saw Kim in that pair of red panties and bra. His face felt like it was burning while his pelvis was stirring once again. All these physical reactions had delayed Ron's brain to receive Kim's question and think of an answer, but there was only one thing he could utter as he brought himself back to reality.

"Um…" He stammered, trying to look Kim in the eye and not allow his eyes to wander all over her body, "Um…wow…I mean…you look…wow…"

"The celebration is to start very soon," Morpheus spoke up, "Shall we?"

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

The four of them headed over to Old Zion where the celebration would be held. Ron and Kim didn't know very much about it; only that they said that it would be held in a place called "The Temple". In their minds, they always imagined a church kind of setting, a place where there were wooden pews, stained glass, a pulpit, and all that. How wrong their assumptions were when they came to the mouth of the temple. At first, their approach to the temple was just another metallic catwalk like all the others throughout Neo Zion. After that, it began to change, and the metal walkway gave way to solid rock. Kim and Ron looked in and they found themselves at the mouth of an enormous cave, a cave that made Ron think back to when he was taken in by an old and reclusive television star that was once known as The Fearless Ferret, yet, even that cave was nothing compared to Neo Zion's temple.

The cave was all smooth and orange colored like Ayer's Rock in Australia, stalagmites and stalactites all around, and torches lighting up the entire cave in a yellow glow that mixed with the orange hue of the rock. All around the temple were small openings where lava was oozing through, and, naturally, the people steered clear of them, which was what made the temple feel so warm. That was when it occurred to Kim why her clothes were so revealing. In the center of the cave was a teeming mass of people. It felt like all of Zion had come to the Temple for the celebration, then again why wouldn't they? There was a small step at the far end of the cave, which had a bright, white light shining down upon it. It was like an altar, and standing there was an old man dressed in blue robes that contrasted against his mane of white hair.

"That's Councilor Hamann," Niobe pointed out to Ron and Kim as the four of them moved amongst the crowd, coming closer and closer to the altar of the Temple. As they did, they heard the Councilor begin to speak.

"May I have your attention, please?" Hamann spoke out, and, with his words, the crowd fell silent. With the crowd quieting down, Kim, Ron, Morpheus, and Niobe continued to move up to altar amongst the people dressed in scant and revealing clothes.

"We are gathered here," Hamann began his speech, "as we have for the last sixteen years, to celebrate the peace that so many young men and women have given their lives for. Today we celebrate the freedom that has been given to us by these men and women, including two who brought about its true beginning, Neo and Trinity. May their sacrifices long be remembered, and the peace they gave us never forsaken." Hamann paused for a moment to observe the masses of Zionites looking up while others looked down in silent contemplation for those who were gone. Hamann then turned to his left, "Now, as a tradition, we call one of our best to speak. I give you Morpheus."

Councilor Hamann nodded to his left while the masses of people below the altar cheered and screamed loudly at the sound of Morpheus' name. The cheering lasted for several seconds as Hamann stepped aside and Morpheus stepped up to the altar, while Kim, Ron, and Niobe stood in the back, watching him address all of Zion like a true leader of men. It was strange to Niobe how Morpheus could gather and lead the people in such a way as he could and still wasn't a Councilor. Perhaps it was because he preferred to be a soldier and fight rather than delegate.

"Zion! Hear Me!" Morpheus called out to the screaming masses of people, his voice echoing through every nook and cranny of the cave while the crowds voices died down to hear his great words, "Sixteen years ago today, we were facing death itself. Sixteen years ago today, while we were fighting for our own lives, two others were selflessly fighting to save us all. Today we remember them, our heroes, our friends, our…family…" Morpheus stopped for a moment, nearly losing his composure in thinking about the past and what had happened back then. He then brought himself back to face the audience, "For them we live still, and for them, within this generation, mankind will see sunlight, real sunlight for the first time in countless generations!"

The crowd cheered for him.

"Now, Zion!" He spoke finishing up his speech, "Let us rejoice and make a noise that Neo and Trinity may hear from wherever they may be!" He turned to his left and glanced over at Kim and Ron who were just mesmerized by how Morpheus was able to capture the attention and hearts of all of Zion in one speech. He turned back to the crowd, "Let them know that we remember them! Let them know that we will remember them until the last man stands on Earth! Let us celebrate and let them know that we do remember them because we…are…free!" He raised his arms in strong triumph to the crowd as the crowd began to cheer in a wave of joy that echoed throughout the entire cave and perhaps all of Neo Zion itself.

As Morpheus stepped down from the altar, the band over on the far right of the cave began to play using pieces of trash that were recovered from the wastelands of the Earth. With the start of the beat, the crowd began to dance, jumping up and down looking like popcorn kernels in a popper as they danced. Others in the crowd began to dance very provocatively, mashing their hips into one another or sometimes swaying their bodies together like waves in water.

Morpheus came up to Niobe, who threw her arms around her husband, "You did good, as always, babe." She smiled.

Ron and Kim looked down into the crowd seeing them dance.

"You know…this is a little freaky…" He gulped as he noticed people were pouring water out onto the crowd to cool them down. Sometimes the water landed on the people, soaking through their clothes and exposing themselves to one another, and other times it landed on the lava pockets sending out steam like the hot rocks found in a sauna. Ron was nervous since several of the women were wearing clothes just as revealing as Kim's and their tops had become transparent enough to see their breasts beneath the soaked garments.

Kim on the other hand was starting to relax; she could feel the energy surging through the cave. It seemed so thick, like smoke in a bar. She breathed in that raw feeling from all around her and couldn't help tapping her foot to the drum beat of the song as a woman came on and began to sing.

_Deep in the night_

_Far off the light_

_Missing my headache_

_Visions of light_

_Sweeter delight_

_Kissing my love ache_

_How come I must know_

_Where Obsession needs to go?_

_How come I must know_

_Where the passion hides its feeling?_

_How come I must know_

_Where Obsession needs to go?_

_How come I must know_

_The direction of relieving?_

_Deep in the night_

_Far off the light_

_Missing my headache_

_Visions of light_

_Sweeter delight_

_Kissing my love ache_

_How come I must know_

_Where Obsession needs to go?_

_How come I must know_

_Where the passion hides its feeling?_

_How come I must know_

_Where Obsession needs to go?_

_How come I must know_

_The direction of relieving?_

"Hmmm, not bad…" Kim nodded as she listened to the rhythm; she even began to bob her head and tap her foot to it. She looked at Ron to see if he was doing the same, when out of the corner of her eye she caught a look at someone. Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller was looking up at her and Ron, and already Kim went to the defensive, mainly because of the dress that Bonnie was wearing. It seemed so revealing that she was close to being naked and that prompted her to think, 'Not this time, Bonnie'. She didn't even give it a second thought before she reached out and grabbed Ron's hand.

"C'mon Ron. Let's dance!" She chirped happily like a kid saying to their parent that they wanted to go to the park. She gave sharp giggle when she saw the shocked expression on Ron's face as she led him down into the mass of dancing people. After all, Ron had never experienced anything like this when the girl asked him and not vice versa.

"K…Kim…I…I don't know..." Ron stammered as he was led into the mass of people, "You know I really can't…KP! L'go! No! I can't dance!"

It was too late for Ron to make any objections to Kim's request since she had already brought him into the mass of people dancing all around him. He could feel the heat both inside from his blushing and outside from the steaming heat of the lava pockets in the cave and the sweating and dancing people. The musky smell of sweat filled his nostrils, but he couldn't take his eyes off of Kim who wrapped her arms around him and began to dance in the same provocative manner as the people around them. It was as if the crowd had bewitched them into releasing all their inhibitions about dancing and to simply have fun.

As Kim pulled Ron into the crowd, up near the altar Morpheus and Niobe watched with smiles on their faces, especially Niobe since she knew exactly what they looked like from a distance. It was a very distinct memory that she had about a certain celebration from years and years ago.

"Remind you of anybody?" She asked her husband with a sharp smirk.

"Neo never fought that hard to stay out of a dance," Morpheus answered back, keeping his eyes on Ron and Kim in the crowd as he continued to muse about the past, "And Trinity wasn't quite that territorial."

"I wasn't talking about Neo and Trin, love." Niobe smiled as she came over to her husband, wrapped her arms around his waist, allowing her hands to gentle caress his buttocks through his robes.

"If not them…" Morpheus asked, uncharacteristically confused about what Niobe was referring to, "…then who?"

"Oh, just a boy I used to know," Niobe cooed, her smile growing, "A shy little guy, just woken up, first temple party, and he was stuttering so much when I asked him to dance with me, it took him well over a minute to get my name out."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Morpheus flushed before turning his attention away from Niobe and back to the rave where the people still danced, jumped, and moved sensuously to the music while the water was still being splashed down upon them. As the dancing continued, so did the music.

_How come I must know_

_Where Obsession needs to go?_

_How come I must know_

_Where the passion hides its feelings?_

_How come I must know_

_Where obsession needs to go?_

_How come I must know_

_The direction of relieving?_

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

The celebration lasted through the night, though while all of Zion was still partying, Ron and Kim were running back to their apartment. They were told to head to bed early since they were departing tomorrow to go see the Merovingian about some more information concerning the stolen device of his. Still, Ron and Kim weren't thinking too much about that since they'd had so much fun. They were giggling like they were six years old and having the time of their lives on the playground without a single care in the world. The two of them were dripping wet from head to toe, droplets of water from their clothes were dripping onto the walkway as they made it to their apartment. They had just happened to be standing in the very place where they were dumping water out onto the sweating crowd of dancers at the temple. The two of them were so soaked that they felt like they had just gone through a log flume ride at a water park.

They came to the door of their apartment, still dripping from the water unceremoniously poured onto them and drunk with laughter.

"That was the most fun I've had in a long, long time." Kim laughed as she tried to catch her breath, leaning against the rail and watching Ron try to find the key to the apartment in his soaked robes.

"I know, KP. That was…was…" Ron started, but his mind froze when he noticed something about Kim's clothing; it had become completely transparent from the water. It stuck to Kim's body like a see-through jumpsuit. He could see everything, the ampleness of her breasts, and the peach color of her nipples, which stuck out like knobs on an old television, and everything from her waist down.

"What's wrong, Ron?" Kim asked, rather worried when she saw the expression on his face.

Ron had to think quickly; he knew that she was unknowingly showing him more than he should be allowed to see.

"Um…Nothing, KP." Ron muttered, "Just a little out of breast… Breath! I'm a little out of breath."

"Did you sneak into the wine at the celebration, Ron?" Kim smiled playfully, only making Ron blush deeper as he tried to search for the key faster, "Just because you're out of the Matrix doesn't mean that the drinking age has changed."

"No. Just tired I guess." Ron choked out, finally finding the key in his water logged pocket. He pulled it out, turned to the door and tried to think of things to keep his mind off of what he had seen. He tried to think of boring, un-erotic things that would not turn his mind into raw, teenaged, hormone-gushing mush. "Morpheus said we're leaving early in the morning, so I think I'll go crash for the night."

Ron turned the key, entered the apartment, and turned on the main light as Kim came in with him and he closed the door behind her. The two of them came out into the main area to say their good nights to one another.

"Ok, Ron. I probably will soon too." She said, hesitating for a moment while Ron was heading to the door of his bedroom. Before Ron made his second step, she added one last thing, "Oh Ron, one more thing."

"Yeah, KP?" Ron asked as he turned around to look at Kim, but he kept his head up and his eyes looking forward so that he wouldn't look below Kim's neck. He knew what he saw was causing a stirring between his legs, and, with such a loose robe, Kim would figure out what he was thinking fairly quickly unless he controlled himself. He looked Kim straight in her beautiful, emerald eyes and took a sharp breath when she approached him hurriedly. The breath became a gulp when she brought both of her hands up to his shoulders and stood up on her tip toes.

"What're you doing, KP?" He asked the very instant that Kim laid a gentle kiss onto his cheek. Ron felt himself flush even more, just like he felt when Kim took him by the hand and led him to the dance floor. Though secretly, Ron was thankful that Kim did that because it was the most fun that he had ever had in his life.

"Happy Birthday, Ron." Kim said as she stepped back and grinned happily at her best friend. She noticed that Ron had grown an inch taller than her in the past year, both in the Matrix and in the real world. It felt like Ron was a real man, after all the times before when Ron was always the same height as Kim, but in the last year, he had changed so much. That was even more evident in the past few weeks since their release from the Matrix.

"Birthday?" Ron asked, still dazed in the heat of his flush from Kim's kiss. His mind came around to the time; it was around the beginning of December that they were called by the Merovingian to find that stolen device. He then thought that it was a couple of weeks 'til his birthday and it was two weeks into his time out of the Matrix. "It's my birthday? I completely forgot!"

"I'm not surprised," Kim smiled and said sympathetically to him as she moved in to hug him, "You've had more thrown on you than I have, and I know I've had a lot to take in."

Ron hugged Kim back, but feeling the dampness of her clothes against his, he felt the nakedness of her body against his and he quickly, but carefully, pulled back.

"Well, I really need to…to get to bed." Ron said rather quickly before retreating to the door of his bedroom, "Good night, KP."

"Good night, Ron." Kim replied.

Ron turned into his bedroom and closed the door. Kim felt the sudden urge to ask him to stay. On the other hand, the thought had crossed her mind that she could follow him in, but then she quickly set it aside as she wondered what she would say when she walked into his room. With that in mind, she turned and walked to her room and closed the door behind her. She did wonder why Ron was acting so strangely when they got back to the apartment, Ron's blushing, his mentioning of breast, and just a lot of blushing on his part. Then she thought about her own reaction, and her intense, almost unstoppable desire to follow him to his bedroom.

"Ron's my best friend." Kim thought, internally debating the issue with herself, "Why am I thinking about him like that?"

She went to her bathroom to get a towel to dry off the excess moisture before changing into her night clothes for a long rest. As she came to the bathroom, she caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror. Curious about herself, she stepped back and saw what Ron was reacting to. She felt her eyes widen and her jaw drop at the sight of herself.

"Oh…my…god…" Kim whispered in her mind, looking at herself from neck to legs; she flushed a very deep red. It was the kind of blush that bordered on that feeling of dying of embarrassment mixed with a twinge of anger and the slightest hint of arousal.

"How could he not tell me?" She asked in her head, "I might as well be naked!" The blush then deepened, spreading all over her body which seemed to intensify the feeling of it. Though from a distance, she would have looked adorable in her full-body flush, her emotions simply seethed as she breathed deeply, trying to calm herself. She ran her hands down her sides, smoothing out the damp cloth, but midway, down she cocked her head slightly and looked in the mirror. She found herself wondering how much Ron had seen before he started acting strangely. Then she wondered if he liked what he saw, after all he had liked what he'd seen when she was in that lingerie inside the training program, so seeing her like this must have been the icing on the cake.

"At least he didn't laugh himself silly or something." She thought, but then she shook her head, "Damn…why am I even thinking about this?" She sighed as she took off the damp robes, "I need a shower… a really, really cold one."

As she took off the last piece of the transparent robe, she looked at herself in the mirror and smiled once again thinking one last thing about the situation.

"Can't say that I blame him."

To be continued…


	7. Resurrections Chapter 7

**The Kimmatrix: Matrix Resurrections**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and Turles**

**Chapter 7: It's Just A Kiss**

"_A kiss may ruin a human life"_

- Oscar Wilde

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The morning came quickly to the crew of the _Nebuchadnezzar II_. It felt as if it were only a few minutes ago that they were having the time of their lives in the temple at Neo Zion to where they were, inside the _Neb II,_ roaring through the pips and tunnels like moles burrowing to the surface. Of course Ron and Kim had the question in mind of why leave Neo Zion, but then again Morpheus wasn't one to really answer questions with a straight-forward answer. It was basically a matter of faith that things would make sense in hindsight.

Onboard the _Neb II_, while Kim, Niobe, Ghost, and Morpheus were asleep, saving their strength for the Matrix, Ron went up to the cockpit where Link was. He came in very quietly, almost like a child sneaking around a house, hoping not to wake their parents.

"You're up early." Link said with a smile from the pilot's seat without even looking back at Ron as if he had eyes in the back of his head.

"I haven't been sleeping too well lately." Ron confessed as he came up and sat in the co-pilot's chair.

"Maybe you need a sleeping partner." Link said rather casually with a slight hint of humor capped off by a wink.

"Kim and I are just friends." Ron shot back very quickly as he tried to hide the fact that he was blushing red through his pale freckled skin.

"I don't recall mentioning any names." Link smiled back at the teenager, who then began to blush even more, "Busted." Link laughed.

As Link piloted the _Neb II_ through all the pipes, their surface level on the dashboard (if it could be called that with how messy and unorganized its construction was) was coming closer to "broadcast depth". With the hum of the ship going on and on, there was a very uncomfortable silence in the cockpit, the proverbial elephant in the room that both men knew was there, but couldn't get it out into discussion, until Ron decided to break the silence.

"Link?" Ron began.

"Yeah?" Link answered back.

"What was he like?" Ron asked, "Neo I mean. I tried to talk to Morpheus about it but…"

Link was quick to finish Ron's train of thought, "Morpheus tends to use big words that only he can understand." He said with a nod, understanding Ron's feelings about the situation, "So what do you want to know about him?"

"What can you tell me about him?" Ron asked, turning the co-pilot's chair to face him expecting something from his lips.

"Neo…" Link began, reminiscing about the events of sixteen years ago, "Well…I guess you could say that he was one of those…_buddy-buddy_ type guys. It was extremely hard not to like the guy, but when Neo was in the Matrix…shiiiii-it!"

"Huh?" Ron asked in confusion.

"It was so damned creepy, Ron." Link said with a smile, but with disbelief behind it as if he was still trying to recover from what he saw so long ago, "He was an unstoppable force in there, especially if you messed with Trinity. He could stop bullets, use telekinesis, control animals' minds, fly like Superman, but what got me the most…he only did _once._ It's something that I will never…_ever_ forget 'til the day I die."

Ron felt himself nod with interest at Link's story about the man that people thought he was to be. He wanted to know, just wanted to know, like many young men before him, whose simple desire was to know about the past. People always asked questions like that, questions about their parents, wondering if they were (at all) like them when they were younger, what life was like back in their day, and most of all, about themselves.

"It was towards the end…" Link explained, "…of the war, I mean. It seemed like it would be our last mission. All we had to do was get to a special door in a special building. We needed to take the power out of twenty-seven city blocks to get there. Unfortunately, we ran into a lot of trouble trying to time it just right. Neo asked Trinity to stay out of the Matrix on that mission, and she went in anyway to save him as well as Morpheus…but…she ran into a problem. _An Agent._ She fought her hardest, but… a normal person can't beat an Agent. I mean after training with Neo, Trinity and Morpheus both could go toe to toe with one, but beat one? _No way_. Even with the odds against her, she still tried, until she had to make a desperate escape."

"What'd she do?" Ron asked, hoping to press the story.

"She leapt out the forty-seventh story window of a building, guns blazing at the Agent that was coming after her." Link said, his voice starting to sound teary. He took a quick sniff and continued on, "That was when the cat got her. The Agent fired one bullet and hit her. At the same time, Neo was flying…and I mean literally _flying_ across the Matrix itself to save her. He was pulling cars, trucks, and all kinds of shit behind him in the slipstream of his wake. Just a few meters before she hit the ground, he came up and caught her."

"…whoa…" Ron uttered.

"Yeah." Link smiled, "But that wasn't the end of it. The bullet that the Agent fired was still inside her. _Somehow…I can't explain it…_it was like Neo dove right into Trinity's code and pulled the bullet out. That's when the whole thing went south. The shot was a mortal wound, and she died in Neo's arms a few minutes later."

"Died?" Ron asked, his face beginning to pale, "_But…but everyone said they went together to stop the war."_

"Did say anything about the fat lady singing?" Link chuckled, "Trinity did die. _She was dead._ Her heart was stopped, brain dead, damaged beyond repair from the artificial negative stimulation, and her signal from the Matrix was gone. That was when Neo did something weird. The code around them, just them went…_ freaky, _and for a moment, Neo merged with Trinity at a level beyond my understanding, beyond understanding period. It was like he reached into her heart, _into her very soul_, and brought her back. No negative side effects….at all."

"Wow…" Ron whispered, unsure of what to say to a story like that, especially knowing what Morpheus had said about damage in the Matrix being reflected in the real world, "How did he do that?"

"Never got the chance to really ask him" Link shrugged, "It got crazy after that. The original Neb was destroyed by a squad of Sentinels, and Neo went into this weird coma. When he recovered, he and Trinity left on Niobe's old ship, the _Logos_, and that was the last time that any of us saw them alive."

The cockpit door opened with a great, metallic creak and a voice came out from behind them.

"Good morning." Morpheus said as he approached the pilot's chair, "Are we at broadcast depth?"

Link looked at the meter on the dashboard.

"Just hit it, sir." Link reported as he prepared to land the _Neb II_ on a nearby edge of the abandoned and decayed sewer pipes. "Ready to go when you are, sir." He said as he stood up and walked out of the cockpit with Morpheus following closely behind.

"Morpheus…sir?" Ron called.

Morpheus stopped at the cockpit door and turned to face Ron.

"There's a connection to the Matrix at Neo Zion." Ron stated to his captain, "Why are we leaving to get to…um…get in?"

"Simple." Morpheus explained, "I didn't want to tell you this in Neo Zion because I didn't want to draw attention. The machines gave us that link, and I, for one, do not trust them." He turned to the door and called out to Link, "Ronald and Kimberly will come with me to the meeting. Niobe and Ghost, remain here in case we get into trouble."

"Roger!" Link called back.

"Are we going to encounter problems from the outside, sir?" Ron asked.

"No," Morpheus answered as he exited the cockpit, "It is better for us to visit the Merovingian in a small group."

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They were back inside the Matrix for the second time. It seemed so strange again to both Kim and Ron, at least for a while, since the differences between the realities seemed so small. Though for Kim and Ron, they remembered what happened during their previous voyage into the Matrix. The fight with Monkey Fist was so horrific; neither one of them wanted to think about it as they got onboard the elevator to the Merovingian's restaurant.

Déjà vu all over again.

"Here we go again, huh KP?" Ron asked jokingly as the three of them rode the elevator to their destination.

"Oh yeah." Kim answered back.

"What can you see, Ronald?" Morpheus asked as he looked up at the numbers on the elevator dial moving closer to their floor.

Ron closed his eyes, getting one last peek of the world of the Matrix in colors, shadings, and textures. He let out a small sigh before he opened them back up to the code of the Matrix that swirled all around him like water, yet the code in that building seemed so different than the rest of the Matrix. It was nothing like any other building that he had seen, a building that seemed self-aware of what the reality of the world was. He could see devices planted in between each floor of the building as his senses reached out to them, and he knew what they were from the knowledge that flooded him on the day of his release from the Matrix.

"The code is different." Ron answered back, "It's like it's encrypted."

"Isn't the Matrix already encrypted?" Kim asked.

"Yeah." Ron answered, "But this is different."

"So, is that good for us or bad for us?"

"It looks like every floor is wired with explosives."

"Bad for us."

Morpheus looked down from the numbers to the floor of the elevator car where the doors met the floor. His mind instantly ticked back sixteen years to an almost identical conversation, which made him give out a sharp and quiet chuckle.

"What's so funny, sir?" Kim asked very inquisitively.

"It's just that…" Morpheus paused in his sentence, "you two remind me so much of some old friends…who are no longer with us."

The elevator gave that slow and soft stop as it beeped to herald their arrival at the Merovingian's restaurant, there was the same black tile floor, and French speaking host, who didn't even look up at the trio. Then again, they didn't stop to speak to him; they simply went ahead into the restaurant, to the long black table where the Merovingian always was. He sat at the center, surrounded by his goons and thugs in their Armani suits, and Persephone at his left hand. The Merovingian looked up and his face lit up with such glee like a boy opening the biggest gift on his birthday.

"Morpheus!" He cried out, "So many years, so many years. How have you been? I am pleased to see you survived that horrid battle…" He turned to Kim and Ron, "And Miss Possible, Mister Stoppable, the new suits look good on you." He then stopped to look at the curves displayed by Kim's choice of dress, "Especially you, Miss Possible, or might I call you Kim?"

"Miss Possible." Kim said through her clenched teeth, having a great disgust for the Frenchman.

Morpheus stepped up to address the program, "We need to know exactly what it was that Doctor Drakken stole from you." He stated emotionlessly.

"Ah," The Merovingian sighed, sounding very disappointed, "Always to the point aren't we, Morpheus?"

"Answer the question." Morpheus pressed the issue even further, his voice still sounding bordering upon interrogative.

"No." The Merovingian responded like a spoiled child refusing to get off the swing set and come in for dinner, "I will tell you _nothing._ I did not call you to help recover my item, Morpheus. I had asked Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable and I will not tell them this information either for it is unnecessary for them to know what it does, but that it must not rest in Doctor Drakken's hands. If that is all, I must bid you _adieu_ before I have you _forcibly ejected_."

It was such a dramatic change in conversation that the Merovingian had switched from being very polite and welcoming to giving ultimatums. Ron, having had enough of the Merovingian's attitude, stepped forward, feeling that new part of him come forward, that nobleness and seriousness that was so _un-Ron._

"I don't think you realize…" Ron stated, stepping forward to face the Merovingian. He wanted nothing more than to give the pompous Frenchman what was coming to him, but he was cut off.

"I realize _exactly_ who you are, boy!" The Merovingian snapped hatefully at Ron, "I know you are the One and I also know that you have _seven months_, just like the others. Mark my words boy and mark them well. I have survived your predecessors and I will survive you. You will be gone, and I will still be here…_as always!_"

"Seven months for what?" Ron asked, cocking his head from side to side in his usual Ron-ness. He then looked over at Kim, whose face began to pale severely in contrast to her sunglasses. Even though Ron couldn't see her eyes, he could feel the fear that she had. That was when the realization dawned upon him.

"Come along, Kimberly…Ronald." Morpheus said to them, "It is obvious that we will find no help here."

He turned and headed back to the elevator with the two stunned and shocked teens following behind. As they left, Ron stopped in his tracks to look back at the Merovingian, as if to hopefully gain some kind of sign what he said wasn't true, that it was simply a ploy to scare him, much like all those tactics that villains have used on him before, yet when he looked at the Merovingian's face and saw no change, his heart sunk to his ankles as he turned and followed Kim to the elevator, wondering about his fate within seven months.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

The silence was thick amongst the trio as they got into the elevator. Even more so with Ron, the proverbial gears were grinding in his head as he lowered his head in contemplation. The idea of having only seven months left to live stuck with him the most. He felt confused, panicked, and lost. All of these emotions were underneath the calm cool surface that he cultivated as he leaned against the corner wall of the elevator car. He didn't look at either of his companions. What could he say to them? Then again, it was noticeable that he was being too quiet, even to Kim who knew Ron like she knew herself; she felt that same amount of silent panic about the Merovingian's prediction.

"Pay him no heed," Morpheus said to the two teens as if he was reading their minds the whole time, "No one knows what the future holds. You may outlive all of us Ronald, so ignore the pompous…"

Morpheus was about to cap off his insultory speech when the elevator suddenly stopped. The trio looked at the indicator and saw that they had gone down only one floor. It did occur to them that perhaps there were some people waiting to get to a different floor. That theory was soon disproved when the elevator doors opened and standing there, waiting patiently was the Merovingian's wife, Persephone.

Déjà vu all over again.

Morpheus shook his head with a slight smile on his face, "Why am I not surprised?"

"Please excuse my husband." Persephone stated, apologizing to the trio, yet her eyes seemed fixed upon Ron. It was the kind of look that Bonnie had when she looked at Ron while they were together, and that made Kim very suspicious of this woman's intentions. "He has been cranky since I have not given into his desires for sixteen years."

"What'd you mean?" Ron asked as he stood up straight and scratched his head in puzzlement. The not-so-innocent answer to such an innocent question was given when Rufus wiggled out of his pocket, climbed up to his shoulder, and whispered small chirps into his ear.

"_Oh!_ Poor guy…"

Rufus nodded as he climbed down Ron's suit back into his pocket.

"I wish to help you." She said to the trio, "Follow me."

Ron felt the same déjà vu again, as if the events in his past life were starting to reoccur all over again. Driven by his curiosity and not wanting to be left behind since Morpheus and Kim were following her, he ran to catch up. They went down the hall and into the men's restroom, at least that's what the sign on the door said, but the restroom itself was so top shelf, even the urinal was a work of art with how the water flowed over a wall down into a small trench built into the floor.

Persephone went to the mirror and began putting on her lipstick, "I will tell you anything and everything you wish to know." She said as she finished up her lipstick, "But only if you do something for me."

Morpheus let out a deep sigh as he knew what Persephone wanted. Kim, on the other hand, grew more and more agitated with each minute she watched this older woman. She was so pretentious in Kim's view, but she seemed to be a greater help than the Merovingian, still, she seemed to be up to something. Kim was like a mongoose and Persephone was a snake in her garden.

"Well…" Ron asked in his young innocence, "What would that be?"

Persephone looked at Ron and smiled lovingly as if he was her long lost lover, "A kiss."

"What'd you just say?" Kim asked quickly, the red flags in her mind screaming that there was something very wrong with this picture.

"And they say we're predictable…" Morpheus sighed under his breath.

Persephone locked onto Ron's concealed eyes, looking at him as if she could see past the dark lenses and straight into the windows of his soul. She stepped closer, her high heels clicking against the tile floor and echoing through the uncomfortable silence of the empty men's room, wrapped her arms around Ron's shoulders as if she were claiming the man for herself, and brought her lips to Ron's ear as she glanced over at Kim for a split second and then came back to Ron.

"Just a simple kiss," She whispered, the air from her lips sending shockwaves through Ron's body, activating certain functions and body parts below the waist, "but I want you to pretend I am her."

Ron wanted to look over at Kim, wondering if it was alright, but even though he knew in the back of his mind that Kim wasn't his girlfriend, his conscience was still bugging him about the situation. He looked at Persephone, who looked right back at him with that same look that seemed to say she could see into the very pit of his soul.

"It isn't as if this would be the first time you have been with a girl in the past week, is it?" She asked, her voice sounding almost like the purring of a very sensual, yet, sinister cat, "And it wouldn't have been the first time you pretended that it was her."

The fear crept throughout Ron's body; it was true, during that time of intimacy with Bonnie, he kept his eyes closed and tried to imagine that it was Kim. Especially when they were kissing, he fantasized that it was her, even more so when he made love to Bonnie. He never faced her; he came in from behind so that he could imagine that it was Kim. The thought made him blush and his eyes darted all around the room, trying not to look at Persephone as he began to sweat within his suit.

"I…" He stammered, "I don't know…"

"_I do!_" Kim snapped as her blood began to boil within her. She came between Ron and Persephone, shoving her hands between the two of them and pushing them apart from each other. She looked at Persephone and snarled, "Hands off!"

"Such emotion." Persephone purred as she slid around Kim and back to Ron where she began to hug his arm, "I thought you were only friends. A kiss would not damage your friendship, would it? Or is there something more there than just simple friendship? After all, it's _just_ a kiss. How will a kiss hurt your best friend?"

Ron had such a look of confusion on his face, even though he tried his best to hide it, but there were certain things he could not hide, especially from Kim, who felt confused as well. She felt angered at Persephone for making such an unthinkable request of Ron. That was when the dream of the beautiful woman with slicked back, black hair came back to her. She had told Kim that she had to let go of herself, but there were so many things that Kim couldn't let go of.

"I…" Kim uttered, trying to find the words that would stop the situation from happening, "…um…_fine, you're right._ He's just my best friend, if you want to trade a kiss for information…" Kim's voice started to tremble and waver, desperately trying to keep her cool, even though she felt herself beginning to crack on the inside like a sheet of ice being shattered by a hammer, "…then fine…go ahead…"

She gave her statement as she crossed her arms and then stepped back from them, her eyes narrowed very tightly upon Persephone from behind her oval sunglasses.

"Ok then." Ron gulped as he turned toward the expectant Persephone, who once again wrapped her arms around Ron's neck. Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced over at Kim, smiling that same devilishly happy smile that Bonnie had when she was lording her relationship with Ron over her. She then looked back at Ron.

"You know what to do, Ron." Persephone whispered seductively as she moved her face closer to his.

Ron grabbed the arms of his sunglasses and pulled them off, revealing his big, puppy-dog, brown eyes. He reached up to her face; his hands seemed to be on auto-pilot as they did so. He didn't know why he was doing it, but at the same time he had a feeling for the reason for it. With her arms around his neck, he wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Here goes…" He muttered as he pulled Persephone closer to him, one of his hands on her upper back and the other at the top of her buttocks as his face moved in and his lips pressed against hers. With their lips locked into one another, Persephone's tongue began to move past his lips and into his mouth.

As Kim watched this, her features softened from anger to desperate sadness before she turned to Morpheus.

"I'll be outside." She stated, her voice quietly cracking as she walked out of the men's room.

Morpheus only nodded, knowing all too well of the implications of the situation upon Kim. It was all so similar, and yet still so different. The feelings were there, but no one was willing to talk about them or even bring them out into the open. He could never be sure of it at the time, nor would he for his remaining days, but Morpheus could almost hear a very faint, whimpering cry from Kim as she left the men's room.

Ron and Persephone broke the kiss.

"Yes…" She whispered, sounding exceedingly satisfied, "That's it…so nice…_unspoken love_…It is such a pity though…that you must soon watch her die."

Ron was in such a daze from the kiss. It was like nothing that he had experienced before; not even Bonnie was that good. It felt as if he had just gotten laid, even though this was just a kiss, and the thoughts about the mission seemed lost in his daze, until what Persephone said broke through, and snapped him out of it.

"What?" Ron asked as he reached up to put his sunglasses back on.

"You have held up your end of the bargain." Persephone stated to Ron and Morpheus, ignoring what Ron was asking her, "Now, I will give you all the information I can give, as promised. Please follow me."

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Persephone opened her purse and pulled out a ring of keys as she came out of the men's room with Morpheus and Ron following behind her. As they headed down the hallway, Ron noticed Kim leaning on the nearby wall to the men's room door. She had her arms crossed and she was looking down at the floor in the same way someone stares out into space when they want to forget about a situation. Seeing her like that, Ron knew that something was wrong. He turned to Morpheus and Persephone.

"Could you two wait up for us?" he called to them both.

"What is it, Ronald?" Morpheus asked.

"Let them be." Persephone advised, "They need only a small amount of time for themselves."

Morpheus looked at her and then back to Ron and Kim, "Alright." He said, "We'll wait."

He then turned and went with Persephone to a adjacent hallway, hoping to give Kim and Ron some manner of privacy.

Ron came up to Kim and looked closely at her face, seeing glistening trails coming down her face from behind her sunglasses. The sight of these simple trails of moisture gave Ron Stoppable such an enormous pain in his heart, even though he knew that it was over such a simple act, but something had to be done about it. He reached out to Kim's shoulders and gripped them softly.

"KP…" Ron paused, bent over as if he was trying to see under her sunglasses, and restarted, "Kim…you alright?"

Kim reached up to try to dry and cover up the tear tracks streaming from her eyes. With the wiping away of the moist trails from her face, Kim gave a sharp and quick sniffle.

"Yeah." She said with a soft smile as she looked up from behind her sunglasses at Ron, "I'm fine. It's no big, Ron. Just got something in my eye…that's all…"

"Kim…" Ron said again, his voice changing once again to one of seriousness, "About what happened in there…" He tried to figure out something that he could say to Kim that would smooth over the situation, something that could make things right once again, so it could go back to the way it was, but he couldn't find anything.

"Ron, so not the drama" She said, trying to keep her old self on the surface while she was still cracking underneath it all as she smiled weakly at her best friend, "Like she said, it was_ just _a kiss. Why would that bother me? It really is no big, so let's just forget about it, okay?"

"No, Kim." Ron said as he reached up to his sunglasses and pulled them off once again, "It is a big and I don't want to forget about it." He said as he reached out and pulled Kim's sunglasses off her of her face as well. At first, Kim reached up to stop Ron from pulling off her sunglasses as if there was some sort of dirty secret under them, then she looked in Ron's brown eyes and saw that he needed this just as much as she did. She remembered the dream, she had to let go, and so she released her hand from Ron's and he pulled off her oval sunglasses allowing her to look at Ron with her blood shot, emerald eyes. To Ron, Kim's eyes were a pair of precious gems that contained an immense sadness and pain.

"What is it, Ron?" She asked, her eyes still seeming to long for something that couldn't be expressed with words.

"I never really thought about this until we…'woke up', Kim." Ron began to explain from his heart, "Do you remember when we first met."

"Yeah." Kim said softly, recalling that day so very long ago and yet, the memory was still fresh in her mind, "I saved you from some stupid bullies in preschool, right after you distracted them from ganging up on me." She couldn't help smiling at the memory of it, "Like I could forget a day like that."

"Do you remember what you said to me?" Ron asked again, his heart feeling like it was trying to beat its way out of his chest.

Kim paused and then answered, "I said, 'you are weird, but I like you'…I think. What are you getting at, Ron?"

"Why do you like me, Kim?" Ron asked, his grip on her shoulders starting to tighten as if he was ready to take her in his arms and hug her, "_How_ do you like me?"

"I…" Kim uttered, trying to understand it all, especially the feelings that she had when she saw Persephone and Ron kiss, "Ron…what's this about?" She asked as she felt her stomach doing more moves than a gymnast at the Olympics.

"Kim…Kimberly…" Ron gulped, and then stopped to steady himself with a good sigh to gather his courage, "I'm not really sure how long I have, but…ever since all this happened…it made me realize what you _really_ mean to me, and I just want you to know that…I…I…_I…_"

Ron stopped his sentence as his Matrix senses began to pick up something. He looked up as his vision changed from normal to that of the Matrix code. He looked up through the ceiling and saw some very familiar figures coming to the elevator. It was one man followed by about four others. "They're coming." Ron uttered, "We have to go." He said to Kim, sounding panicked. The two of them hurried to where Morpheus and Persephone were waiting for them.

"Someone's coming." Ron reported to Morpheus.

"It must be my husband." Persephone concluded, "Time is short. Please, follow me."

In a hurried walk, the four of them headed down the hall, made a few turns through the elegantly bland hallways to come to a door, where Persephone used one of the keys on her ring to opened it. What Kim and Ron saw inside seemed to defy all notions of logic. They had expected to come to a regular room within the building. Yet, what they saw there was like the foyer of a great mansion: marble floors and walls, the banisters of the twin stairs that snaked down the side to meet at the bottom were a deep cherry. Everywhere there was the air of the arts, even the floor sported the enormous letter M, undoubtedly for "Merovingian", and along the walls of the stairs that led to the second level were all kinds of weapons: spears, swords, sais, shields, maces, halberds and all manners of weaponry from different periods and locations.

"The information you seek is this way." Persephone stated as she led the trio to a doorway under the large stairs and balcony sitting at the opposite end of the foyer. It had been a roller coaster of styles; first they went from elegant blandness to exquisite extravagance, to medievalism. The extravagant foyer had given away to stone laden hallways like some kind of gothic dungeon with only barred windows that allowed streams of light, which gave way to a fluorescent light and very neat, clean laboratory. It seemed almost like all the other kinds of mad scientist lairs that Kim and Ron had been to, computer banks and equipment everywhere, yet it was minus the inept guards that were always present.

In the center of the room, there was a dust outline in the floor, and poked with rubber circles at the far corners of the shape. Ron and Kim reached the conclusion that it must have been the machine in question. Yet, something seemed very wrong in Kim's mind. She kept looking around at the room itself, wondering what was wrong with the picture, while Persephone came back to Morpheus with a small, PDA-like contraption. "Here are the design specs for the machine in question." She said as she handed it to Morpheus.

He took it and scrolled through the innumerable pages of text, schematics, notes, journal entries and so on. That was when Morpheus made the horrifying connection of what the machine was.

"A Code Copy Program." Morpheus stated, "But what would Doctor Drakken want with a copy program?"

Kim and Ron looked at each other with a very knowing smirk on their faces as if predicting what Doctor Drakken's moves were.

"Cloning." The two of them said in unison, thinking back to how Drakken had done so in his innumerable plots in his attempts to take over the world. He stole laser drills, built doomsday machines, Killer Bee-bee's, and enslaved the elderly. It had gotten to be old hat with Kim's arch-foe's boss.

"If that is all," Persephone stated, glancing towards the door, "I suggest that you make an escape before my husband returns."

"I believe you are correct." Morpheus agreed as he tucked the pad into his pocket, "Let's move out."

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

As the four of them walked back out into the mansion's foyer, there was still that thing that was bugging hell out of Kim. It was the fact of how the lab was so big. The machine, judging from the outlines in the dust on the floor, must have been huge, or at least big enough to reach up nearly to the lab's ceiling. That's how it usually was in Kim's experience of mad scientists' lairs; the equipment usually reached up to the ceiling. Already the dots were beginning to connect in Kim's mind and at that instant, she felt as if she had been stabbed in the back. The thought was laid aside when the four of them came into the marble foyer and there, waiting for them, was the Merovingian. He stood there, with his entourage of men armed with guns, applauding the four of them.

"Bravo!" He said condescendingly, "Bravo! I see you have discovered the use for my toy…but it is the _why_ that still eludes you, no?"

The thought came back to Kim when all the dots were connected, "There never was a robbery." Kim stated, looking at the Merovingian from behind her oval sunglasses.

"What'd you mean, KP?" Ron asked.

"The doors in the lab are _way_ too small to be able to get that big of a machine out…without your knowledge." She said as she raised her finger and pointed straight at the Merovingian as if her hand were a gun aiming its first bullet, "This was all one big set up!"

The Merovingian smiled, "Quite true, Miss Possible." He began to laugh at the teen hero's efforts, "Again, you know the cause, but the effect still eludes you."

As the Merovingian was about to go on again with his cause and effect rant, a door opened somewhere in the foyer and a voice that Kim and Ron hadn't heard in weeks burst forth like an explosion.

"The _effect_ is that _I_ rule the world!" The raspy voice answered.

Kim and Ron looked quickly to see that their immediate suspicions had been confirmed; it was their old foe: Doctor Drakken. He came in posturing about as if he felt that his victory was close at hand, like he usually did. Following behind and keeping her guard up was his 'faithful companion', Shego. The two of them came to the Merovingian's side. Though when Doctor Drakken took his proud posture, he looked to the Merovingian, who flashed a very evil and spiteful glare, and Drakken knew what it meant.

"I…" He uttered, "I mean, _we _rule the world!" He said proudly, raising his black gloved fist.

While Drakken was boasting his villainous ways, Persephone came to the Merovingian's side.

"History does repeat itself, my love." Persephone said to her husband, "Cause and effect."

The Merovingian looked down at his wife as she left back through the main door leading to the restaurant through the keys she had at her disposal. He then looked back at the trio with the rage burning deep within him from the years of backed up tension and sexual frustration. It swirled on his face as he tried to stay calm, to have the most proper of manners even in the face of his enemies. He then smirked at Ron, seeing that boyish innocence on his face even with all the new clothes he had.

"I wonder how far along are you, Ronald Stoppable." He stated as he raised his hand to his henchmen, who came forward, cocking their guns, even Shego, who usually preferred hand-to-hand combat, leveled a gun straight at Ron's head. "How powerful are you?"

"You know," Shego interrupted the Merovingian's villainous ranting, "I would love to tear you and Kimmie apart with my bare hands, but you work with what you have. Right, Ronnie?"

Ron snorted at all this, "We've been through all this before, haven't we?" He asked his rhetorical question with such condescension as he came forward, standing on the marble letter M embedded into the floor, "I can take whatever all of you can dish at me."

"You can take it?" The Merovingian asked, "_You can take it?_ All of your predecessors had much more respect than you! Shoot him!"

With that command, Ron Stoppable stood his ground against them. He clenched his fists, ready and waiting for whatever was going to come. With the knowledge of the world around him, he reached up and spread out his hand like a traffic cop halting one direction of traffic. The guns began to fire, all of them sending out bullets at Ron, Kim, and Morpheus while the shell casings had hit the floor. Kim was scared, even though she didn't exactly cower behind Ron as he had in the past; she was just worried about what the outcome would be. Yet, what made her stand her ground was the confident smile on Morpheus' face, he stood there as if he was saying to Kim: _watch this._ As the guns fired, the bullets stopped in mid-air just mere inches from Ron's hand, he began to bob his head, and smirk with absolute confidence.

"Is that all ya got?" He asked in his cockiness as he lowered his hand and the bullets fell to the ground like pearls from a broken necklace. As they did, Ron looked to the Merovingian with a very conceited smile, wondering if the Merovingian had lost his ace in the hole against him.

"Ok, you have some skill." The Merovingian admitted, rather defeated.

"Boo-yah!" Ron cheered for himself as he broke out into a small, pseudo-break dance, "Who bad? Who rocks? Uh-huh, oh yeah!"

As the henchmen of the Merovingian, as well as Shego and Drakken watched, many of them were dumbfounded as well as annoyed. Sure, he stopped the bullets, but did he really have to rub the victory in their faces like that? Shego certainly was not one to take victory so well, especially when her enemy was glorifying it like that. She reached up with another gun and fired a few more bullets at Ron.

Instantly, Ron brought his hand up stopping the bullets in mid-air as if they were flies heading straight into fly paper.

"Come on!" Ron said, holding the bullets in mid-air, "Give me a break!"

"Sure, Ronnie-boy." Shego smirked as she reached up with her thumb for a button on her gun near the trigger and safety catch, "Take five."

She pushed the button and Ron looked at the bullets, noticing something very different about them. They had hollow points in them as if someone had drilled small holes into them. He watched from behind his sunglasses in wonder of what or why bullets were designed like that. He soon came to regret asking himself that as puffs of gas blew out of the bullets in a thick, putrid, yellow cloud. As the gas began to surround him, Kim, and Morpheus, Ron's mind told him not to breathe in the gas, but he already inhaled too much of it. As he tried to hold his breath, his vision became blurry and his head began to spin. With the blurred vision, the world also became darker and darker until he lost consciousness and fell to the elegant marble floor.

Kim and Morpheus too inhaled the gas, but while Morpheus was fighting to stay on his feet, Kim was desperately trying to reach Ron. She fought the effects as if they were her mortal enemy. She moved her feet, but they felt as if they weighed were weighed down with so much lead and simply got heavier with each new step.

"Ron!" She wheezed, "Look…out…"

Her eyes were starting to close as she saw Shego coming through the cloud of yellow gas with her gasmask on, its oval lenses and breather making her look almost alien as she threw Ron over her shoulder. She would have made a quick get away, but turned to look at Kim, who was starting to lose her battle against the gas.

"Right into our hands!" Shego laughed as Ron's sunglasses dropped from his face and onto the marble floor, where Shego crushed them underfoot as she made her get away out of one of the mansions doors.

"Let…him…go…" Kim hissed as she tried to get back to her feet, but her body seemed to weigh hundreds of pounds that her strength could not endure. She couldn't hold her breath anymore; she released it and took in another breath of the gas, falling to her knees. The weight of her body seemed to compound with each breath of the gas she took.

"Ron…_no…_" Those were the last words that Kim had uttered before all became black and she fell into the darkness of her mind.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

"Ron!" Kim gasped as she opened her eyes as well as trying to get back to her feet, only finding herself in the Jack Room of the _Neb II_ with the hands of Link and Niobe trying to hold her down.

"Easy, easy." Niobe advised as she rubbed Kim's head with a damp washcloth, "You were knocked out. Morpheus got you to an exit. You're safe now."

"Ron?" Kim asked as Link reached over and pulled out her jack, "Where's Ron?" She asked, begging for Niobe to give her the answer, no matter how grim it may be.

"You were careless and impulsive." Morpheus scolded as he walked towards Kim's chair, "You could have gotten yourself killed."

"Where's Ron?" Kim asked, again ignoring the commanding scolding that Morpheus was giving to her.

Morpheus took in a deep breath and let out a sigh of frustration before turning to Link and the newly arrived Ghost.

"They've masked his signature." Link answered softly, as if he was delivering the news of a death in a family, "I…_we_ don't know where they've taken him."

Kim sat upright, looking over at Ron's body still lying in the jack chair, asleep, and connected to the Matrix. She got up out of her chair and went over to Ron's side, laying a hand on his forehead and brushing it back against the scratchy stubble of his head. She bent down, laying her forehead against his and cursing herself for not being strong enough to save him. It was so sad to Kim, she had been all over the world inside the Matrix, saved dozens of people, and yet, when it came to her own best friend…she was powerless to stop his capture. She stood up again, brushing her fingertips over his sweat soaked forehead.

"Can you find him?" Kim asked Link, her concern shaking and cracking her voice, her eyes not leaving the face of her best friend.

Even though Kim couldn't see it, Link was shaking his head. He knew what the answer was and looked over at Niobe, Ghost, and Morpheus, wondering what he should say to her, lie through his teeth that he might be able to find her, even though it was impossible with all the encrypted code or tell the truth that they may never find him. Even worse that they may have to pull the plug. If Drakken did, in fact, have that code copy machine, then he could use it on Ron. That thought did occur to the most seasoned crew members, who had seen dire situations like this before, but Kim was far too new to receive such distressing news…except Link had an idea, but he had to tell the truth first.

"We can't." He told Kim, who then looked at him with her emerald eyes filling up with tears. He paused until he finally said, "But I know who can…_she has to help us._"

To be continued…


	8. Resurrections Chapter 8

**The Kimmatrix: Matrix Resurrections**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and Turles**

**Chapter 8: The End of the Beginning**

"_How delicious is the winning of a kiss at love's beginning."_

- Thomas Campbell (1777 – 1884)

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Kim dipped her hand into the bucket of water near Ron's jack chair, looking for the rag that was soaking inside. She pulled it out and ringed out all the excess water. As the water dripped, her mind wandered from issue to issue; she thought and wondered what it was that Ron wanted to tell her as well as the dire prophecy from the Merovingian: only seven months. In a very odd way, she was comforted by that because it gave her the feeling that Ron would live.

With the cloth wrung out, she got back to her feet and wiped the cold, moist cloth over Ron's warm, sweating forehead. She held the cloth on his forehead as if he was sick with a fever. Looking at Ron sitting there helpless in the jack chair as well as mulling over the situation at hand, Kim desperately needed something to take her mind away from the sitch at hand.

Consciously, she thought back to Halloween. Not the one that had her telling several lies to Ron and her parents as that was one holiday that Kim didn't want to remind herself of. She shuddered, remembering that was the first show of anger that Ron displayed to Kim ever. The Halloween that Kim thought about was two months before the December of their release from the Matrix. That particular time, Kim decided to make up for her mistake of the previous year and brought Ron to the hospital to do one of her greatest acts of kindness.

The decision that year was that Ron and Kim decided to dress up as the Blue Collar Boys. Kim was Jeff Foxworthy, Ron was Larry the Cable Guy, Mr. Possible was Bill Engvall, and Mrs. Possible was Ron White. Kim had even invited the real Blue Collar Boys to Middleton to host the Laughs and Screams benefit for the Hospital. Of course, they were more than willing to help since Kim had saved the quartet on a plane trip to Upperton. As Kim recalled the event, Jeff was the one to express the gratitude of the whole group.

"We never would have made our tour gig in Upperton without your help, Kim." Jeff had told her.

Kim smiled as she thought of her response to the redneck comedian's gratitude, "No big. Anyone could have fixed a crack in the hull of an airplane at 30,000 feet with industrial grade duct tape."

That night truly was filled with laughs and screams, but the part that really made Kim smile was when Ron parodied Larry the Cable Guy. It was just the way he walked around in the sleeveless flannel shirt, the dirty, mud caked jeans, and that jungle camouflage baseball cap with a paper clip on the bill. Kim just could not stop laughing that night with Ron coming out on stage to dozens of people and screaming, "Git-r-done!" Of course there were a lot of laughs when Kim came out as Jeff Foxworthy, with a fake mustache, cowboy boots, and bent legs, telling jokes such as, "If you've ever worn a tube top to a funeral home…you might be a redneck."

Kim caught herself giggling quietly as she pressed the damp cloth to Ron's forehead. There was one memory that Kim promised not to bring up or tell anyone about, but she couldn't stop herself from thinking of it.

This particular memory took place around November of that same year; sometime before Thanksgiving break was when this wonderfully embarrassing and hilarious event took place. Kim had stayed after school for the yearbook committee, but it ran longer than she thought, so when Ron went to her house to talk about a half-baked idea of bringing a Tex-Mex dish to Thanksgiving, he found no one was home. He checked every room, but the place was devoid of the Possible family, and he was about to leave when he came to the kitchen. There, he caught a glimpse of an apple pie on the counter with a note next to it saying, "For Kim and Ron".

At the time of this humorous event, Ron was obsessed with sex. He wondered so much what it was like, but he knew that he would never get any. He couldn't even get a girl to go out with him, with the exception of Zita, but that was a different story. As a virgin, Ron wondered about the exquisite pleasures behind the act of love, until he overheard a guy in the halls talking with his friends and by a strong coincidence they were discussing the very subject Ron was thinking about. One of them likened sex to "warm apple pie". Ron didn't stop to ask more detail about it; he just kept walking along, but then in the Possible family kitchen with the pie there, something overtook Ron. He undid his pants, climbed onto the kitchen counter, and mounted the pie, feeling its oven baked warmth all through his groin. He felt that if he was never going to get any, the pie would be close enough. The tryst turned horribly wrong when Kim Possible came back home and opened the kitchen door to find her best friend, Ron Stoppable, in his sordid affair with her mom's pie. After Ron had a quick shower, especially washing out his crotch, he sat down with Kim to figure out what to do. As Ron blushed through the entire uncomfortable silence, Kim found a solution.

"I had said," Kim thought as she tapped the cold wash cloth over Ron's forehead, "That we would tell mom that we ate it all."

"Hang in there, Ron." Kim said as she held the washcloth over his head; her ears wandered around the jack room and they came upon Morpheus, Ghost, and Link at the operator's station on a search.

"Have we located her yet?" Kim heard Morpheus ask, his voice was cooler than the air of the _Neb II_.

"Not yet, sir." Link spoke up, his fingers dancing around the multiple keyboards of his station.

"Her who?" Kim asked as she set the damp washcloth on Ron's forehead, and then got up to speak to Morpheus about their plan. It was a few minutes ago, after she came out of the Matrix, that Morpheus and Link had formed a plan, but Kim was being kept in the dark. Then again, she was too concerned about Ron's well-being to ask what their plan was to rescue Ron from his captors. It wasn't just the conversation between Morpheus and Link that prompted Kim to take action. It was the very thought of trying to get along in the real world without him.

"We are trying to locate the Oracle." Morpheus reported to Kim, his voice not having an ounce of worry, anxiety, or concern, as if he knew already what the outcome of the situation would be. "She is the one most likely to know how to locate Ronald."

"I hear a '_but'_ coming." Kim said to Morpheus with her fists clenched at her hips.

Morpheus nodded, "The problem is the Oracle can only be found when she wants to be found."

Kim took a deep breath and let it out in frustration as she turned and went back to Ron's side. She felt so helpless and inept, a feeling that Kim hated with a passion. She couldn't deal with the idea that for someone who could do anything, the one thing she couldn't do was save her best friend. She felt like crying as she walked up to Ron's side, feeling so full of hate for the fact that she couldn't do a thing, but that was quickly set aside when she looked up at him.

Ron's face was contorting, his grip tightening on the chairs handles, and his face was sweating even more than before. The sweat droplets rolled from under the washcloth, down his face, and started to soak through his clothes, causing damp spots around his armpits and the center of his chest.

"Ron." Kim heard herself utter as she took the cloth from his forehead, dunked it back into the bucked, quickly ringed it, and wiped all the sweat away.

"What's happening to him?" Kim asked, wanting an answer from anyone; she didn't care who.

Morpheus came to Kim's side and looked at the LCD screen above Ron's head that displayed his vitals, blood pressure, heart rate, brain waves, etc.

"It looks like they're drugging him to keep him from using his abilities." He told Kim before looking to her and seeing the concern etched on her face. He reached up to place a reassuring hand upon Kim's shoulder. "He's going to be alright, Kimberly. Have faith in him. He is the One after all."

"I do have faith in him." Kim whispered back, "But not because he's the One."

"Of course." Morpheus smiled; he knew that Trinity was just like Kim, especially when it came to the One. Trinity had faith in Neo, but it wasn't because of what he was…it was because of _who_ he was. Seeing that repeated through Ron and Kim simply made it bittersweet.

The conversation in the room went deadly quiet, with the taps of Link's fingers on the keyboards, searching and digging through the Matrix to find the Oracle, being the only sounds. All the time, Link was fighting between the hope that they would find the Oracle and despair that they had lost another good man like Neo. He sat back, taking a small break and hoping that something would happen…some kind of miracle.

A miracle did happen, and in the most unexpected of ways that Link had ever experienced. On the headset came a series of beeps, a quick four beep pattern that was almost like a quiet cell phone. The beeping even came through the silence of the room, and caught the attention of Morpheus and Kim, who looked at each other and then at Ron very confused about the beeping, at the same time, there was something familiar about it.

"We don't have anyone inside besides Ronald." Morpheus observed, looking back at Link's station and seeing his confused look before going over to the station with Kim following behind, "Who would be calling us?"

"Only one way to find out." Link said as he reached for the connection button, his heart pounding in his chest, wondering if this was the miracle that he was hoping for. He pushed the connection button and said, "um…Operator?"

Link paused for a moment as the voice from the other end spoke to him.

"Hold on a sec." Link said as he reached up to pull off his head set. He looked over at Kim, holding out the headset to her, "It's for you, Kim. Some kid named Wade."

Kim reached out quickly and put the headset on, acting as if it was the Kimmunicator itself and she was in the old days, "What up, Wade?"

"Hey, Kim." Wade's voice came through from the other side, sending Kim's heart into a high flight of euphoria at hearing a familiar voice for once, "Look, I can't talk for long; they don't like us search engines making long distance calls to the outside, but Ron's in trouble."

"Really, you think?" Kim asked, her voice dripping thick with sarcasm.

"My mom knows where Drakken and Shego took him and why." Wade reported to Kim, "She wants to talk to you, but you have to come alone; she says this is just for you. I'll tell your Operator where to drop you off and we'll have Seraph bring you to her. Now, hurry, Ron doesn't have much time."

"Alright." Kim said in that tone of voice that she had when she knew there was a job to be done, "I'll let you talk to Link now. Thanks again, Wade. Even on the outside, you still rock."

"Thanks Kim." Wade said with pleased gratitude as Kim handed the headset back to Link. He took the headset and carefully listened to Wade's instructions, quickly tapping on the keyboards.

"Got ya, kid." Link replied into the headset, "We'll have her there in a second."

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Kim opened her eyes from behind her oval sunglasses to find herself in a small alleyway. She looked around to find a busy sidewalk just a few yards away, walking out she found a telephone booth standing there as if it was waiting for her, but it wasn't the phone booth that Kim was looking for. As a matter of fact Kim didn't know what she was looking for, until she felt a sharp, vibrating feeling in her jacket pocket.

She nearly jumped when she felt it, but she reached into her jacket's inner left breast pocket and pulled out the source of the vibrating. It was the Kimmunicator. Kim smiled as she thought that Wade must have told Link to add in this small feature before she went into the Matrix.

She pressed the "on" button just as she had so many times in the past.

"What's the sitch?" She asked since she wasn't sure if it was Link or Wade that made the call to her.

"Kim." Link's voice came through the Kimmunicator's speakers in audio only, "Take a left and go for two blocks until you come to a place called _Doo Wop's Restaurant._"

"Got it." Kim acknowledged as she shut off the Kimmunicator and slipped it back into her jacket pocket. She did she as was instructed by Link; she took a left from the alleyway and onto the busy sidewalk. It didn't take her very long to realize that she was in Chinatown, probably in New York City with all the high-rise buildings beyond the Chinese style rooftops.

Two blocks didn't seem that far away, but with all the people crowding around Kim, going from one place to the next, it was like she was in the middle of an ant hill. She counted the blocks, keeping her eyes on the Chinese and English signs above her head, looking for the place that Link had told her about.

Before she knew it, she found the place: _Doo Wah's Chinese Restaurant_ written in both Chinese kanji and English text. Her eyes came down to the door; she kicked the doors open and went inside. The restaurant was completely empty except for one man sitting cross-legged on a small…table…would be the word that Kim would use to describe it. She immediately recognized who it was; Seraph, the Asian man that had led them to the Oracle's place the first time. He sat upon that table drinking tea and taking no notice of Kim's noisy entrance from the busy street until she approached him.

"Welcome, Miss Possible." Seraph greeted taking a sip of his tea, "I have been expecting you."

"Who hasn't? You know where Ron is?" Kim asked with a combination of sarcasm and worry.

"Come." Seraph instructed, pulling a ring of keys from within one of the sleeves of his shirt, "There isn't much time."

He walked up to the door, chose a single key from his ring, and slid it into the lock of the door. After turning the key, Seraph opened the door to that hallway of doors. Kim was the first one to step through with Seraph following behind.

"Gotta love this trick." Kim smiled to herself.

Seraph smiled back at Kim's comment as he led her down the hallway of doors until they came to a certain one. Kim didn't know how Seraph kept from getting confused; all the doors looked the same to her. "Good thing you're here. A girl could get lost in this jungle." Seraph smiled once again before taking out one of the keys from his ring and opening the door in front of them. This time, it led straight into a very familiar place. At first Kim didn't quite recognize it since it seemed like a narrow foyer into someone's apartment. She followed Seraph into a living room and that's when the light bulb in her head blinked on. They were in the Oracle's apartment. Kim had figured out that much from the old wooden television as well as the hand knitted quilt that covered the couch; it was definitely her place.

"Why'd you bring me here?" She asked Seraph demandingly.

"I apologize." Seraph bowed to Kim, "The Oracle has many enemies so it was necessary to take alternate routes."

"But is she even here?" Kim asked.

"Yes, she is." An old voice answered Kim's question.

Kim's attention snapped to her left to find the Oracle standing in the doorway. She stood there with that grandmotherly smile on her face, the very same that Kim's grandmother would have when she visited her in Florida. At least that was before her grandmother would start lecturing her, but just the Oracle's smile seemed to irritate Kim.

"Good. You came on time, Kim." The Oracle smiled as she motioned to follow her into the kitchen, "Seraph, please wait here."

Seraph bowed.

Kim followed the Oracle into the kitchen where the latter moved like the great Galapagos tortoise to her table, and to light up one of her cigarettes as if there was not a problem in the world. Kim became even more annoyed with the Oracle's casualness as she simply stood near the doorway with her arms crossed.

"I'd ask you to sit down, Kim." The Oracle stated as she took a puff of her cigarette, "But we both know that you're not going to."

"Do you know where Drakken and Shego have taken Ron?" Kim asked up front.

"I'm an Oracle, Kim, not a search engine like my boy, Wade." The Oracle answered back very seriously, "If you wanted to know where Ron was, Wade could have easily found him."

"Yes, but…" Kim paused; she felt very confused as she remembered they couldn't find Ron inside the Matrix since they were blocking his signal, and it was Wade who called the _Neb II_ to bring Kim to the Oracle.

Kim started up again, getting back to the point at hand, "So, are you going to tell me where he is?"

The Oracle smiled once again, "Feisty and hot headed as your red hair, Kim, and you still haven't figured it out."

"Figured out what?" Kim asked, growing more and more annoyed with the philosophical tap dancing.

The Oracle paused once again as she took a short drag from her cigarette before she set it aside in the ash tray and looked up at Kim, "How much does Ron mean to you, Kimmie?"

"What?" Kim asked, blushing furiously.

"I'm sorry, Kimmie. It seems like every time we meet, I've got nothing but bad news." The Oracle apologized, "You're going to have a choice to make. In the one hand, you'll have Ron's life, and in the other, you'll have your own. One of you will die. Knowing this, will you still go to save him?"

Kim didn't even give it a second thought, "Yes. He's my best friend, and if I lost him…_I…I…_wouldn't want to go on living anyway. We've been through too much together; he's gone through too much for me, risked his life to help me. Is it not right that I do the same for him?"

The Oracle sighed, "I was afraid you would say that, Kimmie…He's in South Manhattan at warehouse zero-two. Seraph will take you as close as he can...the rest will be up to you…Good luck, Kimmie." She smiled as Kim disappeared out of the kitchen to meet with Seraph.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

"This way." Seraph said as one of the many doors in the infinite hallway opened to a small alleyway.

Kim didn't ask a single question until she came to the alleyway where she wondered if her directions were right. The moment that the question came up, she heard the door behind her close. She spun sharply around, seeing the whiteness of that hallway being shut out. She reached out to the doorknob and as she opened it, Kim felt shocked as well as confused. She didn't find the white hallway of infinite doors; instead, she found a dank, dark, old and unused warehouse with crates starting to fall apart on themselves.

Just to make sure she wasn't hallucinating or that there was some kind of glitch in the Matrix; Kim closed the door and opened it again. She still found the inside of that old warehouse. As she closed the door for the second time, she shook her head quickly to brush off the surrealism of the situation.

"Weird." She thought to herself as she walked out of the alleyway to find herself in the industrial part of the city where the warehouses were as frequent as the trees of Middleton.

Kim looked around at the numbers of each warehouse, and saw that she was in the 'teens. She could feel it deep within her that she was close to Ron. She dashed down through the aisles of equipment and alleys of warehouses, hoping against hope that she wasn't too late.

"Ron…" She thought.

Thinking about Ron, another memory popped up in her head; it was when Ron had signed up her for the Talent Show to beat Bonnie, without Kim's prior knowledge nonetheless. Though eventually, thanks to the support of Ron and her win-win mindset, she came to the talent show, sang, and overcame her own problem of being unable to hit the high notes of the song she chose. It was the song from that talent show that made Kim smile in her sprint to save Ron.

_I'm on it, I've got it_

_I can do anything_

_What you need, got your back_

_Just say the word, I'm there…_

_If you find your world is cavin' in_

_You can bet you're gonna need a friend_

_Someone to take those fears…away….away…away!_

_Say the word_

_Make a call and I'll be there_

_Anytime. Anywhere._

_Have you heard?_

_That I'm all about savin' your world_

_All you have to do is…say the word_…

Kim ran until she could feel her lungs burning and she started to sweat underneath her clothes, but she continued on until she found a warehouse with the numbers zero-two above its enormous front doors. She looked at the rectangular shape of the building, and felt that it was an ample opportunity to test more moves within the Matrix.

She came around to the side of the warehouse, making sure she didn't run into any of Drakken's goons. Seeing that there was no one around, she took a few good steps back from the brick wall, took a deep breath, and made her dash at the wall. Instead of running face first into the wall (something that Ron would be more likely to do) her feet made contact with it. A split-second later her other foot was higher up the wall and within a matter of seconds Kim had run up the wall and landed upon the rooftop. "Spider-Man, eat your heart out." she said to herself.

There wasn't time to stop and marvel (no pun intended) at the wall-run; a friend was in need. Kim looked about the roof to find the glass skylights that adorned all the warehouses in this district, and like the other warehouses; there were several of them. She walked over to the one nearest to her, knelt down, and looked in. Through the grit and grime, Kim saw what she had always seen in the dozens of times that she had gone to face Drakken: the mad scientist lair, the goons dressed in red and black and armed to the teeth to protect Drakken and his machines, the computer banks set up among the wooden crates as if they had become part of the lair itself, and in the center of it all was the Merovingian's Code Copier.

The feature that had attracted Kim's eye was that attached or rather embedded into the large, oddly rectangular machine were two human sized tubes that opened sideways as the Merovingian's manual had described. Circling around the machine were Drakken and Shego; Drakken was probably reveling in the fact that his plan was so close to completion, while Shego was just ignoring Drakken, since she was getting paid to deal with it.

"Ron…" Kim gasped as she saw him lying inside one of the human sized tubes. She didn't even think about it as she got to her feet and jumped through the glass skylight. All around, Kim felt the glass crashing around her as she looked down to the warehouse floor to mentally pick her landing point. She couldn't have been sure of it at the time, but, for just a nanosecond, it seemed like everything in the room had frozen in place, like how a computer freezes when it's trying to load a program with too much data for its memory to process. Kim had then landed upon one of the highest crates as the broken glass showered down around her.

"Kim Possible!" Drakken shouted out in surprise as he looked up at his foe on top of the crate stack.

"Oh come off it, Doctor D." Shego rolled her eyes at the supposed mad genius, "You kidnapped her dopey sidekick/almighty hero and you expect her NOT to hunt us down? Seriously."

"Let him go!" Kim snarled as she pulled off her oval sunglasses and slipped them into her coat pocket.

"Or what?" Shego laughed, "You're gonna do some of those fancy, freed-human, super moves?" She jumped up onto the crates like a mountain goat scaling cliffs and stared at Kim. Looking at her from head to toe and back again, she laughed once again at Kim, "It's a wonder you can even move in that skintight leather, princess. Bet Ronnie here liked it, didn't he?"

"I can move just fine, Shego." Kim smirked as she took a stance from the many styles of Kung Fu that she knew and started her own retort against Shego, "At least I still look good in tights. I mean, seriously, whatever happened to your hips?"

"_Why you little…_" Shego hissed as her hands went into automatic attack mode, glowing with those green flames and diving for Kim as if she wanted to tear the teen's head right off of her shoulders. Kim jumped away from Shego and landed on another set of crates. Shego followed and the two of them began to exchange blows back and forth, multitasking between trying to stay balanced upon the crates and trying to beat one another in their hand to hand combat. Kim ducked down so fast that her coat took only half a second to follow suit, but Shego had caught the end of the jacket, sending her glowing fingers through it and ripping the material like it was wet tissue paper.

The fight stopped instantly after Kim heard the rip of material and the pull against her back. She pulled the jacket to see the damage and then she looked at Shego with a new, intense fire in her emerald eyes as she let go of the coat.

"_Shego,_" Kim snarled, "you…you…_Ron gave me this coat!_" Kim screamed. She took off the jacket, exposing herself in her skintight leather pants and midriff-baring vest. She tossed the coat aside, took her stance, and dashed right for Shego while yelling, "You're going down!"

As Shego watched Kim come at her, she saw a new flare in her eyes. It was something that scared her for the first time in all her fights and bouts with her. She felt truly afraid; perhaps it was because they were no longer equal anymore. Kim had the advantage over Shego. The teen was aware of the Matrix and could use that knowledge to her advantage. In her fear, Shego tried her hardest to fight back even though she knew it was pretty much futile.

Shego reached up and tried to make another swipe at Kim with her burning hand, but instead of blocking it, Kim had caught Shego's swipe, its glow starting to burn into Kim's hand hotter and faster than anything Kim had ever felt in her life. Still, it was no longer a mission in Kim's mind, it was personal. She held Shego's glowing hand in hers and through the blur of pain coming from it, Kim brought up her leg, she grinded her teeth to take her shot, and with a gymnast's flexibility, she kicked Shego in her chin, sending her down to the concrete floor with a great, echoing thud.

Kim didn't stop there; she hopped down from the top of the crate stack to where Shego was starting to get up. As Shego got to her feet, she wiped away the blood from her black-lipstick-painted lips. Her hands were aglow and so were her eyes with a new hatred for Kim Possible. There was no fear for Shego anymore. This time she wanted to tear Kimmie apart, limb from limb. She wanted, more than anything, to see the girl broken and bleeding at her feet, limbs twisted around her neck a few times. She dashed at Kim, but before Shego saw anything, Kim had jumped up into a Crane Kick that sent Shego flying against the crates, her impact sending out dust, planks of wood, and splinters. There was no resting period this time; Shego got back to her feet and with her hands aglow once again. She dashed at Kim; her face bleeding from the splinters imbedded there by her impact. She was within striking distance when Kim began to move at super kinetic speed, caught Shego's hand, and kicked her in the chest sending her flying once again, but this time her back had hit the machine that Ron was in.

"Copy Sequence Engaged." An artificial female voice stated as the machine started to hum like a central heater kicking on.

"Yes!" Drakken cheered as if he had already won the battle, "An army of Anomalies all for my own personal brainwashing!"

"What?" Kim asked, looking towards the machine. She dashed up to it, knocking down the goons that got in her way with a simple punch or kick. She saw that in the center of the machine between the two human sized tubes there was a small screen showing white text against a blue background that gave the information.

_Copy Status: 00_

She watched as the copy status percentage began to rise.

"Too bad having his code copied will kill him…" Shego coughed as she got back to her feet from Kim's attack, "…Oh well…"

"I thought you didn't like cloning, Shego?" Kim asked, looking at Shego's sad state: bloodied and bruised from Kim's attacks and, of course, her clothes ripped and hair all a mess, with fragments of wood tangled in it.

"The cloning, I don't have a problem with, as long as someone else is being cloned besides me." Shego shrugged as her hands lit up once again before she made another attack at the teen hero. The two of them became locked in each other's grip, Kim holding Shego by the wrist, and the two of them pushing against one another. "And, besides, an army of brainwashed soldiers who can control the Matrix is actually a plan that might just work."

Shego smiled as the blood still oozed from her split lip.

"Well then, you're just going to have to wait for the next One," Kim snarled, "Because I'm not letting you hurt my Ron!" Kim declared as she shoved Shego's arms upward and quickly connected with a strike to the stomach and a good uppercut to her chin, which sent Shego flat onto her back against the concrete floor.

"_My Ron?_" Shego chuckled as she got back to her feet, "So possessive…"

She took her stance again as Drakken made a mock cheerleader chant for her, "_Shego, Shego, you're our girl!_" Drakken had stopped his chant to inform Shego, "Hold her off for thirty more seconds and that should be enough for both parts of the code!"

"No problem, Doctor D." Shego smiled through her bloodied lips and made another attack on Kim.

Kim couldn't fight back as well as she did in her bloodlust over the jacket that Shego had ruined. It wasn't because of the pressure of time; it was because she kept looking at the tube that held her greatest friend, Ron Stoppable. He was lying there writhing in pain, thrashing about, moaning and hoping for someone to let him out. Kim had Shego into another wristlock; Shego's back was towards the machine, and Kim kept looking at Ron writhing in that tube and at Shego's face.

"I gotta take her down, and fast." Kim thought. She felt something inside her click, and using the Matrix itself to enhance her strength and speed, she ran in a zigzag pattern, looking like nothing more than a big, red blur to her emerald opponent, and stopped five inches in front of Shego, using her opponent's shock at this display of speed to pick her up by the throat and throw her over the copy machine, no small feat in itself, and into the crates behind it. There was a loud thud, and no more was heard from the woman with emerald fire coming from her hands.

With Shego out of the way, Kim saw that her path to setting Ron free was clear, except for one small stone in her path: Doctor Drakken. She came up to him using her Matrix speed, brought her fist back, and was ready to slam it into his blue scarred face, but stopped when she heard Drakken's plea:

"Not in the face!" He cried, "Not in the face!"

Kim decided to grant him that request and simply made a roundhouse kick into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him as well as knocking him out when he hit one of the computer banks. It was all clear. Kim came to the machine that Ron was trapped in and she looked at the screen between the two tubes.

_Copy Status: 55_

"Good." Kim smiled, "Now how do you turn it off?" She asked as her eyes scanned over the multitude of buttons and switches. All of them, so many different arrangements and colors that they seemed as chaotic as a bowl filled with different colored M&M's. "The hell with it." She said and finally gave in, smashing the control panel with a good, hard kick that sent out sparks and pieces of plastic and metal that used to be buttons, switches, and a control panel. She stood back as the lights on the control panels died down, the hum of the machine came to a slow stop, and the tube that held Ron Stoppable opened up and he tumbled out of it, onto his hands and knees, gasping for breath.

Kim dashed over to Ron and held him in her arms in a loving embrace.

"K… P?" Ron asked weakly, looking down at her back.

Kim loosened her embrace to look at Ron, "Yes. It's me and you're safe now." She whispered softly and then smiled, "What'd you say we get out of here?"

"No need to ask, Kim." Ron smiled and in-turn uplifted Kim's spirits.

"Can you walk?" She asked as she was about to stand up.

"Yeah, I think so. Just a little dizzy..." Ron answered as he got to his feet, at first a little wobbly, but quickly recovered.

Kim went over to where she had dropped her jacket. She was about to put it on when Ron had noticed the damage that was done to it. Kim immediately turned around to see the look on Ron's face.

"Jacket got a little torn, Ron." Kim apologized with a little blush.

"Hey, it's just like Wade said before, KP." Ron said, "Stuff happens when you're helping people and saving the world."

"Thanks, Ron." Kim smiled as she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her Kimmunicator.

"You still have the Kimmunicator?" Ron asked.

"Long story." Kim said as she made the call and the voice came through.

"Operator." Link's voice called.

"Hey, Link!" Ron called.

"Damn, it's good to hear your voice, Ron." Link's voice answered back with delight.

"Link, we're going to need an exit and fairly close."

"There's an exit three blocks down in an old subway station." Link answered, "It'll start ringing when you get there."

"Thanks, Link." Kim said as she turned off the Kimmunicator and slipped it into her pocket, "Let's go home." She said to Ron as the two of them walked out of that warehouse, through the industrial area, and back into the city. For Kim, it felt as if she had been completed once again. When Ron was captured, she felt as if something was missing in her life. Of course, she missed her friend; that much she knew already, but it just felt deeper to her. She wondered if the Oracle was right; she had gone through all of that to save Ron, but there was never any danger of her or Ron dying in that battle…none at all. Kim decided to set the idea aside and just get to the exit, but hidden within the Matrix, there were powers that were keeping an eye on Kim and Ron. Somewhere within the Machine World, a small screen was blinking to life, and a green blinking cursor was starting its program:

_Tracking System: Online _

_Anomaly Located _

_Probable Exit Located _

_Agents Loaded _

_Objective: Eliminate Anomaly and those aiding him _

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

It must have taken Kim and Ron a good forty-five minutes or so to walk those three blocks from the shipping yard to the subway station that Link had sent them to. The two of them walked down the steps into the station and saw that the place was in desperate need of repair. The concrete walls were old, gritty, and covered with graffiti of people's names, saying who rocks and who doesn't as if they were staking out territory. Looking around the place and seeing how bad it looked, Ron could see places and parts that looked like they were punched into; places that looked like fists and bodies were slammed against it.

"I think I've been here before…" Ron mused as the two of them looked over at a single telephone booth that looked brand new amidst all the dirt, grime, and age. It started to ring, which grabbed Kim and Ron's attention. The two of them went over to it.

"You first, Ron." Kim motioned for Ron to go first.

Ron went into the booth, and amidst the ringing, Kim had to ask something of Ron.

"Ron?" She asked nervously, "Do you remember you said there was something you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Yeah, KP… but…"

"I want to talk to you about something too." Kim stopped Ron in his utterances.

"I just want to ask you one question, KP." Ron said nervously, "I wanted to ask why you fight to save the world and all?"

Kim smiled because she knew the answer as if it was there all the time, "You." She smiled as she answered.

"What?" Ron asked, surprised.

"Because you are my world, Ron." Kim said as she laid a gentle hand on Ron's freckled cheek, "It'll only take a minute to get to the other side, so we'll talk more then, ok?" She asked as she leaned in to kiss that freckled check of his.

"Ok…" Ron blushed and touched his cheek tenderly as he reached out to grab the phone's receiver. As he was bringing it up to his ear, he looked over at Kim and smiled, "See you on the other side." He said as he brought the receiver to the side of his face. He felt himself in such a daze as he looked at Kim. All around everything started to turn black and green swirling like food going down a kitchen drain. As the world was shrinking away, Ron looked over to the stairs of the subway and saw three Agents coming down the steps bringing their guns to bear.

"Kim!" Ron screamed as his body vanished into the phone, "Look out!" He cried, trying desperately to pull away back into the world of the Matrix, but it was too late. He opened his eyes and found himself back into the dingy, grey, real world of the _Neb II_.

"We lost the exit." Link's voice called out to Ron, "What happ…"

Ron cut him off, "Agents!" Ron cried out, "Get me the hell back in there, _now!_" He barked in desperation, the need shimmering in his brown eyes.

"I'll try." Link said as he quickly tapped the buttons at his station, "Damn! The whole Manhattan Network's been blocked. The closest I can get you is Red Bank, New Jersey!"

"I don't care where you get me." Ron yelled as he sat back waiting for the upload, "Just get me as close as you can!"

As Ron waited impatiently for the upload to begin, Morpheus came around and looked down on Ron in his jack chair.

"Remember." Morpheus said, his voice still remaining as calm as ever, "Focus and you can do anything in the Matrix."

"Got it." Ron said, agreeing with Morpheus, but really feeling more annoyed as he felt the upload begin. His eyes closed and he felt the pull from the back of his head as if he were falling deep into a sleep while he felt a blinding flash of light wash over his eyes.

He opened his eyes to find himself in the place that Link had talked about, Red Bank, New Jersey. He found himself out in front of a store called, "Jay's and Silent Bob's Secret Stash", and saw ample opportunity. He closed his eyes and forced the Matrix vision to come back to him. As he opened his eyes back up and looked around, he could see and sense Kim's code miles away. Around her, the three Agents fighting her; her practice in the Construct's sparring program was showing through in that she was holding her ground, but she was slowly starting to lose the fight.

"I'm coming, KP!" Ron declared as he felt his bones start to tremble in his joints and he began to do something that he never would have thought possible. He clenched his fists and began to squat as if he was about to get a closer look at something on the ground. As his knees came down to the ground, the concrete all around him rippled like the surface of a pond after a large stone had been thrown into it. He pushed with his feet against the rippling concrete and he flew, literally FLEW, straight up into the air while the concrete and the buildings below him wobbled like Jell-O and went back to their original shape.

While in the air, Ron didn't think for a second that he was actually flying like Superman, his mind was filled with thoughts about Kim and the trouble that she was in. His eyes and mind were fixed on her Matrix code as he parted the clouds above the state of New Jersey like a speedboat making waves in a still lake. He flew up higher and higher above the clouds circling as if he was performing some kind of mid-air ballet before he looked out over the city and shot straight down like a bullet out of a gun, making the clouds swirl behind him like a tornado as he came down into the streets of New York within a matter of seconds.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

In the subway, where the exit to the real world was, Kim was trying to fight the Agents. At first she was holding her ground fairly well, but it got worse as time went on. It was as if the Agents had a switch or a knob within them that sped them up. It was so much that Kim was having a hard time keeping up with all the different attacks. Every one felt like she had been hit by a car, and Kim's blows weren't all that effective, even her most powerful attack didn't leave a single bruise on them like they did with Shego.

Kim tried another attack; she jumped towards the first Agent, who had identified himself as Agent Jackson, but then again it didn't seem to matter that they named themselves since they looked so much alike anyway. Kim made her attempted punch at Agent Jackson, but he dodged the punch and, while Kim was trying to regain balance by throwing so much force into her punch, the Agent slammed his elbow into the small of Kim's back. The blow was so much it felt like Kim was being broken in half as she fell to the concrete floor, where Agent Thompson slammed his foot into Kim's back as well.

The impact was so hard to Kim that it felt like her ribs were going to crack. She coughed uncontrollably and suddenly felt a warm fluid in her mouth; it was salty and coppery tasting. Looking around, she quickly got back to her feet while spitting out whatever it was in her mouth; it was blood. There was so much of it that, for a second, she thought she had lost a tooth. She gazed at the Agents, all three of them had neutral looks about them, not taking pleasure or regret at their actions, just…neutral, like automatons.

She gazed out at them with one eye since her right eye was dark and swollen shut from all the beatings that she had endured from the Agents. Stumbling backwards, her pride and inner strength could not and would not let herself fall. She looked back at the Agents, but before she could even get into her fighting stance, Agent Thompson quickly flew at her with the same blurred speed she had used against Drakken, grabbed her by the hair, and slammed her face into his knee. Kim got up and started to limp away from the fight.

"What is the saying?" Agent Thompson asked as the other Agents turned to face Kim, who was barely standing at the edge of the staircase that led out of the station, "Kim Possible, she can do anything, correct? I wonder…can she die?"

Kim looked back at the three Agents with her good eye, and it widened with terror as she watched the three of them pull out their side-arms, their Eagle .50s and take aim at Kim. She wondered if this was her time; she always knew that with the amount of danger that she faced everyday there would always be the risk of her dying, but she never imagined in her wildest dreams that it would end like this. Before she could even second guess her own death, she heard a voice from somewhere in the distance.

"KIM!" The voice screamed.

"Ron…?" Kim asked, but it was too late. By the time the voice had reached Kim Possible's ears, the Agents had pulled their triggers. She heard the bang of their guns as well as five blunt and painful thuds in her chest. It didn't hurt at first; it felt more like being punched, but then the aftershock gave way to a spread of fiery pain throughout her entire body. It went beyond pain for Kim, nothing in her life was like what she felt, yet that wasn't the end of it. She then felt whatever had hit her start to rip right through her back as if it was something inside her that got out.

She looked down at herself and found five wounds in her chest, all of them oozing with blood. Reaching up to them, she touched her chest, brought her hand out, and looked at the blood dripping through her fingers. She fell backwards, her weary legs giving way under the lead weight of her body. Her mind, which was still functioning, thought that she would meet the cold hard steps of the subway staircase. Instead, she felt something soft and warm. Whatever it was, it seemed to have arms capable of reaching out and grabbing her by her waist, holding her as she was lowered down to the ground.

Kim felt as if she was dozing off into a dream while the pain of the bullet wounds still flowed within her, forcing her to stay awake, but at the same time she felt so sleepy. In that state between sleep and awake, suddenly another memory had popped into Kim's mind, or more accurately a set of memories.

The memories started when she and Ron tried to stop Drakken from stealing a device called the Electro-Magneto Accelerator from this other scientist, Dr. Cyrus Bortel, who had also invented another set of devices called "Moodulators". One of these Moodulators ended up on the back of Kim's neck, while Ron picked up the controller, thinking that it was the Kimmunicator. During that time, her emotions were controlled by the Moodulator, but seemed randomized to everyone, so much so that Ron wondered if it was because of the fact that Josh Mankey had moved on to dating someone else that was causing these randomized emotions. However, that was quickly set aside when she started crushing on Ron. That was the first time that she had actually kissed Ron, but not just a peck on the cheek like that time under the mistletoe at Christmas; this was full-on lip locking with Ron, and it was wonderfully warm. That's what Kim remembered: the warmth of Ron's lips on hers. After that Moodulator incident, things were never quite the same between Ron and Kim; in fact, everything was so awkward that they tried to pretend that it never happened even though deep down they knew that it had changed them permanently.

The one memory that truly stuck with Kim as she was lying there on that subway staircase was when she and Ron watched this movie at her house. It was an animated movie though it was supposed to have great music in it. The movie was called _Anna and the King,_ a remake of the old Rodgers and Hammerstein musical: _The King and I_. Though it was one particular song that she thought of in her drifting between sleep and awake: _How can I not love you_ by Joy Enriquez.

_Cannot Touch_

_Cannot Hold_

_Cannot be together_

As she thought of the song in her head she felt herself being shaken awake.

"Kim!" The voice in the darkness called. Kim came back to the light and saw Ron kneeling over her. She watched as Ron pulled off his mirror lens sunglasses to see his big, brown, puppy dog-like eyes filled with such worry.

"R…Ron…?" She asked before she felt a sharp tickle in her chest and started to cough up more blood onto her lips and chest.

"No…no…no…" Ron muttered uncontrollably as the tears started to well in his eyes and roll down his cheeks where they dripped from his chin and onto Kim's bloodstained vest, "Please…please, KP…don't die! Please!" He begged as he wrapped his arms around her and held her close to him, the blood from her wounds soaking into his jacket.

Kim could still hear that song in her head as if it was playing just for her.

_Cannot love_

_Cannot Kiss_

_Cannot Have each other_

Kim tried to speak, but her strength was starting to fade. She felt somewhat angry in the back of her mind, because it seemed that the Oracle was right after all. She had made a choice between Ron's life and her own. Kim knew that she couldn't continue to live in a world without Ron; that much she had declared to the Oracle, but lying there and hearing that song in her head, she wondered if Ron could continue his life…without her. She looked up at Ron and thought only one thing to herself as the song progressed in her head: _it's now or never, Kimmie…_

"Ron?" She coughed even more.

"Don't talk, KP." Ron cried, "We'll get you some help, just hang on…please."

_Must be strong_

_And we must let go_

_Cannot say what our hearts must know_

_How can I not love you?_

"Ron…" Kim wheezed again, taking one last breath and whispering her last words into Ron's ears, "I…love…you…"

As Kim uttered that, she felt a tremendous joy in her heart. It was Ron she had loved all this time. The one person that was with her through all those years of world-saving and helping people and yet she was so blind to the truth all that time. Even though she knew that it was the end for her, she felt happy, truly happy…at long last.

Kim Possible let out one last sigh of breath with a smile on her beaten and blood covered lips as she went limp in Ron Stoppable's arms.

_What do I tell my heart?_

_When do I not want you here in my arms?_

_How does one waltz away from all the memories?_

_How do not miss you when you're gone?_

"Kim?" Ron asked as he shook Kim's body lightly, her head bobbing as he shook her limp and lifeless body, "Wake up…come on, KP…_wake up!_" He cried as he continued to shake her body harder and harder. He leaned over, laid his head upon her chest, and heard no heartbeat. He reached around and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly, "Not like this! No! Come back, Kim… I need you, please come back!" He begged so hard through his own tears as they mixed with the blood on Kim's clothes. It was the very thing that Ron wanted to tell Kim when they got back out into the real world, but she would never know how he felt…ever again.

_Cannot dream_

_Cannot Share_

_Sweet and tender moments_

There were those who felt different emotions toward what they were seeing. The three Agents that were standing a few yards away from Ron Stoppable were smiling to themselves to see that the Anomaly was truly only human if he was weeping over another human.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Link was watching with misty eyes; he had seen people die before, most certainly, yet it was the way that Ron was reacting to Kim's death that made him feel such loss. It was just like when Neo had lost Trinity, but Link doubted if Ron would know what to do, because no one in the real world had ever known how Neo did it. He looked over at Morpheus standing behind him with such sadness, grief, and anger in his dark eyes.

"Give him a chance." Morpheus uttered to Link.

Back inside the Matrix, the Agents couldn't get enough of what they were seeing; it was as if they knew that they had a 'job well done' on their hands.

"I should have brought popcorn." Agent Thompson smiled as he watched Ron desperately cling to Kim's lifeless body. The other two Agents watched warily as Agent Thompson made the bold step towards the Anomaly.

"You have no right to the title of Anomaly, Mister Stoppable." Agent Thompson stated as he loomed over Ron in his misery and grief, "Crying over a pathetic human female's passing? I thought that the Anomaly would be stronger and greater than this. She gave up her purpose when she left the Matrix with Morpheus, but you, you still have a purpose, one greater than this…cattle…"

The instant Ron heard those words, he could feel something within him loosen, like a wild animal breaking free of its cage.

"Shut up!" Ron snarled as he held Kim closer, "_Just shut up!__You…think she was just cattle? I loved her and you insult her like that? You're nothing but heartless machines…you don't even deserve to be in the presence of her body!"_

With that last statement, Ron took a deep sniffle as he gently laid Kim's body down, picked up his sunglasses, put them on, and then rose to his feet, turning to face the three Agents. With the sunglasses on, the Agents couldn't see the sadness and grief burning in his eyes. To the Agents, The young man looked as much like a soulless being as one could be. Ron curled up his fists so tightly that the Agents could hear the cracking of the sinews and knuckles. All around him, the very fabric of the Matrix seemed to shimmer and wave like ripples in a pond.

The other two Agents could sense what was going on.

Agent Jackson looked to Agent Johnson, "This course of action is ill-advised."

"I concur." Agent Johnson agreed.

"Perhaps a retreat is in order…" Thompson said fearfully as he sensed the Matrix shaking all around Ron Stoppable as if he was the epicenter of a 10.0 earthquake.

"Oh no, you don't." Ron said, his voice devoid of all emotion, "This is for KP."

_Cannot feel how we feel_

_Must pretend it's over _

_Must be brace and we must go on_

_Must not say what we've known all along_

Ron Stoppable looked at Agent Thompson, the alpha of the trio; he gazed at him with such animosity and hatred that he could feel it burning throughout every inch of his skin. It seemed to be in only half of a blink of an eye that Ron had moved from where he stood. The next thing that Agent Thompson knew, he was lying on his back on the concrete with Ron sitting on his chest. Ron reached up and slammed his fist against Agent Thompson's face, breaking the program's glasses into pieces as they fell from his face, but that wasn't the end of it. He brought down his other fist against Thompson's face and the impact was such that Thompson's skin, flesh, and bone rippled like Jell-O, wriggling in every single direction, his jaw in one place and his eye in another. There was even a glimpse of the Matrix Code that made him up, which seemed to be breaking down, but only for a few moments before it reconstructed itself and set Thompson's face back to normal.

Back in the real world, the crew of the _Neb II_ watched in fascination as Ron was beating the code, bites, and bytes out of the Agent himself. The code itself seemed to have shockwaves of its own from the powerful blows that Ron was bestowing upon the Agent for taking away the one person that meant so much to him.

"I've never seen anything like this before, sir…" Link stated to Morpheus.

"And I looked," Morpheus quoted from Revelation, "and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him."

"What?" Niobe asked, looking at her husband, rather worried about the whole situation.

"I have very little regard for the Agents of the System." Morpheus stated, having little compassion in his voice, but then he closed his eyes and said, "But in this situation, I could almost find myself pitying them. Almost, but not quite."

Back inside the Matrix, Ron continued to pound Agent Thompson's face left and right until he could feel his own knuckles growing sore and raw. They weren't exactly to the point of bleeding just yet, but Ron could see the Agent he was beating the hell out of was starting to show signs of injury. Before, whenever they were hit, they would just bounce back; this time, the Agent was bruised, his eyes swollen shut, his lips split and thick, blood dripping from the corners of his mouth, and Ron was still pounding away, until the Agent's face was awash with blood, and Ron's knuckles were raw from hammering away at his face so much. He stood back on his feet, panting until he made a statement to all the Agents. He looked at them in a way that made the Agents very fearful of him.

"Your purpose was to police the Matrix." Ron stated to them in a voice that seemed so different from his own, as if he was a different person altogether, "You are now obsolete, thus you have lost your purpose. Programs without purpose have but one course left: Deletion."

Ron took a few more steps back. He stood at a stance that made the Agents very nervous, but at the same time confused because Ron had no corporeal weapons on him.  
They'd surmised as much, but they also knew that not all of the Anomaly's weapons were physical. For the first time, these machine driven drones felt…afraid. Ron raised his hand towards the Agents and at first it seemed that nothing was happening.

The Agents relaxed for a moment, but only a moment.

All around Ron Stoppable, the Matrix began to ripple and distort like fabric rustling in the wind of a great storm. It seemed to emanate from Ron, swirling all around him like a swarm of angry hornets roused from their nest, yet the rippling of the Matrix didn't stop there; it also followed Ron's commands, and came to the Agents , crashing down upon them like a great Tsunami, and with that, the last two Agents fell to the ground where Thompson was, all three of them twitching and screaming in pain as the rippling began to _infect_ them.

Ron's teeth clenched as he watched the Agents writhe in pain on the floor. His brow furrowed as he then brought up both hands towards the Agents like some kind of sorcerer. He watched as the Agents' skin, clothes, and other accessories began to turn into light, a light of green haze. From the green haze, leaked out strands of the Matrix code as if they were streams of blood running from the wounds in the Agents.

They were right where Ron wanted them; he raised his hands towards the ceiling and brought them down again. There was another great ripple and crash like a typhoon within the Matrix code, and like dust in the wind, the Agents were blown away, piece by coded piece, until there was nothing left, no Agents, just the subway that rippled back to its default state and Ron Stoppable standing there in his own victory.

"Funny…" He sighed as he reached up and pulled off his sunglasses, "That didn't make me feel any better."

_How can I not love you?_

_What do I tell my heart?_

_When do I not want you here in my arms?_

Ron went over to where Kim's body lay; he dropped to his knees, reached down and held Kim's limp body to his chest. He looked over to her face and stroked away a few strands of her ginger hair, even though her face was so badly beaten up, Ron could still see the beauty of her. The woman who would always say, _what's the sitch?_ and _no big_ and that wrestling was fake. Even with all the good and bad times that he'd had with her, he missed her so much.

"I let you down, KP…" He whispered to her as the tears flowed from his brown, puppy dog eyes once again.

As he looked at her, Ron consciously thought back to that discussion he'd had with Link back on the _Neb II_. Thinking about that, he tried to remember what it was that Link had told him.

_Trinity did die. She was dead. Her heart was stopped, brainwave activity stopped, damaged beyond repair from the artificial negative stimulation, and her signal from the Matrix was gone. That was when Neo did something weird. The code around them, just them…went funny, and for a moment Neo merged with Trinity at a level beyond my understanding. It was like he reached into her heart, into her very soul and brought her back. No negative side effects… at all._

"How?" Ron asked desperately, hoping that there would be some kind of hint, some clue that would tell him what to do to bring Kim back. "How did he do it? I've figured everything else out…"

He went down and pulled Kim's body up onto his lap.

"Come on, Kim." He whispered as he placed his hand onto her chest, over her heart, "I need you here; I'm not going to let you leave me. Not like this! Do you hear me?" He relaxed and could feel his hand sinking into Kim's body; he couldn't believe that it was happening right before his very eyes. He was reaching into her, reaching into the very code that made up her digital self down to her unbeating heart, taking it into his hand as if it was a piece of fruit on a tree. "I'm not letting you leave me, Kimberly Anne Possible, not ever again…I love you too damn much!" He said to himself as something happened; he was starting to act upon instinct like he did when he was fighting those Agents. Yet, this time, he could feel something different within him taking over, not that other presence that helped him fight, it was his heart… the heart that loved Kim Possible as he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers.

_How does one waltz away from all the memories?_

_How do I not miss you when you're gone?_

_How can I not love you?_

_Must be brace and we must be strong_

_Cannot say what we've known all along_

As Ron had his lips pressed against Kim's, he felt her heart start to beat in his hand once again. It had been jump started, and with that, a warm breath washed over Ron's lips. He smiled as he pulled his hand out of Kim's chest. He looked down and his eyes widened; Kim had completely healed; her face was no longer bruised, her lips no longer fat and bloodied, and her eyes widened yet very much alive in their emerald green glory as they stared back at Ron.

"Ron?" Kim asked weakly, before she blushed and a playful smile began to grow on her lips, "Never knew you were into necrophilia."

Ron didn't care; he reached down and hugged Kim tightly.

_How can I not love you?_

_What do I tell my heart?_

_When do I not want you here in my arms?_

_I can't just waltz away from all the memories?_

_How do I not miss you when you are gone?_

"You're really alive?" Ron blinked as he leaned back and looked into Kim's eyes.

"I…guess…" Kim blushed slightly at the intensity of Ron's stare at her; it was a look that Ron had never given her and it seemed to freak her out just a little bit, thought not as much as wondering if she was actually dead just a few minutes ago.

"Kim…" Ron stated.

Kim looked straight into Ron's brown eyes.

"About what you said before you…" Ron paused as his face turned a bright crimson, "You know…well…I feel the same way…I mean…I love you too."

Kim's eyes went wide. The Oracle was wrong; she didn't die. She may have made the choice about Ron's life and her own, but now she felt such contentment and completion on hearing those words come out of Ron's mouth that it was like she never left. She embraced Ron as the two of them leaned in to kiss one another. It wasn't an artificial, influenced kiss like with the Moodulator; this time…it was for real.

"Never do that to me again." Ron whispered against Kim's lips.

"I don't know…" Kim smiled as she slid her arms around Ron's neck, "Getting a reception like this kind of made it worthwhile."

"Oh yeah?" Ron smiled as he pulled back, and scooped up Kim into his arms like a knight in shining armor, "You still owe me you know? I was conscious for your first confession; you weren't when I told you."

"Told me what?" Kim smiled as she took in how comfortable it was being in Ron's arms. After all, she was never treated in such a way ever before. Sure, her father held her on his shoulders when she was younger, but nothing like what Ron was doing. Ron began walking up the stairs of the subway back to the streets of New York when Ron gave his answer to Kim.

"That I love you and I never, ever, ever want you to leave me again." Ron smiled before leaning in to kiss her again. He leaned back and smiled, "…whoa…"

Kim smiled back in a daze of her newfound love, "You know something Ron? Do you remember the Middleton Days Festival? Remember what I told you at the end of it?"

"Yeah." Ron answered, remembering back to that Moodulator episode.

"I meant it." Kim said as she leaned in to rub her nose against Ron's, "There's still fireworks."

"Let's go home." Ron smiled as he squatted down, sending out ripples through the concrete of the Matrix and rocketed up high into the air, with Kim squealing in his arms, but holding on tightly to his neck as the two of them headed back to New Jersey to find their exit out of the Matrix.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Meanwhile, back at the warehouse, the defeated Doctor Drakken and Shego were meeting up with the Merovingian, the very man who had setup this whole event. He looked around at the sad state of things as well as how badly beaten Shego and Drakken were, not to mention their goons.

"So, he got away?" The Merovingian asked as he walked up to Drakken with his hands behind his back.

"Curse that Kim Possible and her bumbling sidekick!" Drakken growled as he rubbed his stomach where Kim had kicked him.

"How much of the code did you copy?" The Merovingian asked as he rubbed his chin.

"Around fifty five percent." Drakken sighed, "Blasted heroes…_I hate them!_"

"That's more than enough." The Merovingian smiled, "Did you activate the control system?"

"Why bother? There's not enough for a full copy." Drakken shrugged.

He then looked at the Merovingian and his henchmen and saw that all of them had a look as if someone was about to set off a bomb in the warehouse. It was the kind of look that said they wanted to get out as quickly as possible before this terrible event started to unfold.

"What?" Drakken asked, "Why's everyone so quiet?"

"You fool!" The Merovingian gasped as he dashed to the second tube of his machine. "Maybe it isn't…too late…"

Just as the words left the Merovingian's lips, a hand had reached out from the opened tube, which spouted steam like a kettle boiling. The hand reached for the Merovingian's tie and used it to pull itself out of the tube.

"Feels good to be back." The voice from the tube stated as he fully came out into the world. Everyone in the warehouse looked in horror as they saw the very program that nearly brought the Matrix to an end. Even the most fearless of people like Shego and the Merovingian couldn't help becoming petrified. They stood there as they looked upon an Agent standing there outside of the Code Copier and adjusting his tie before he reached into his inner breast pocket and pulled out a set of sunglasses.

"Y…you…" Shego whimpered as she crawled backwards into a corner made by the crates, "It…can't be! You're dead!"

"Ah, dear sister." The Agent smiled like that of a great demon brought from the darkest reaches of hell, "I see you remember me."

The Agent started to walk towards Shego before Drakken stepped in his way.

"Just who do you think you are?" Drakken said as he stared down at the Agent who was only a few inches shorter than he was.

"Doctor Drakken, I presume. Ah yes, I do remember you." The Agent smiled once again before he offered a handshake to the mad genius, "Allow me to introduce myself. The name's Smith…._Agent Smith_, and I am at your service."

To be continued…


	9. Upgraded Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** We do not own the copyrights to Kim Possible, The Matrix, or any other books, movies, and songs referenced in this fan fiction. All Copyrights belong to their respective owners.

**The Kimmatrix: Matrix Upgraded**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and Turles**

**Chapter 1: Six Months Later…**

****

_"With great power…comes great responsibility."_

- Ben Parker (Stan Lee's _Spider-man_)

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Josh "Ares" Mankey made his leap across the fifty foot gap that separated two skyscrapers of the Los Angeles skyline. Before he made his landing upon the rooftop of the other building, he made a somersault flip like a circus acrobat. He landed on his right foot bringing down his left knee to absorb some of the impact of his leap. He stayed in that position for a few seconds like a devout Christian genuflecting or a knight that was kneeling before his king.

Afterwards he got back to his feet and looked back over the skyline of Los Angeles, he thought about how easily he had leapt from one building to the next as if he were a frog leaping on Lilly pads. It certainly went without saying that he enjoyed being free from the Matrix and being able to do all the gravity defying moves.

"I love this place!" He cried out, his voice only giving a slight echo throughout the horizontal city, that was when Josh had brought himself down from the cloud he was riding upon, "If only Kim…" He uttered

He started to have some regrets about Kim Possible. In the beginning he was toying with Kim, playing hard to get with her. After all, it was no secret to Josh of how handsome he was, it wasn't just Kim that was after him back then. Nearly half of the cheerleading squad wanted him, if not all of them. Even with all those women wanting him, Josh wanted to tease and toy with Kim the most. He couldn't help but revel and marvel at his acting skills showing that he wasn't interested while Kim was twisting herself into knots about whether or not Josh liked her or not.

That was until that one night when Josh had asked Kim out, he was half expecting to get lucky that night. He knew that he was fulfilling the girls' fantasy, though he couldn't help but notice the strange things that were going on around Kim. It was somewhere towards the end of the date that Josh decided Kim really wasn't worth all the teasing and toying that he had done. Except, he wondered, if I wasn't interested then why did I kiss her? A very good question indeed. At least until the summer when Josh met a man named Joseph who said that he would show him the truth, and that was nearly a year ago for Josh when a few months into his freedom, as well as with his relationship with Terra (Aldonza), that he heard the buzz within Neo Zion that Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable had been freed.

"Why did Morpheus have to be the one to free her?" Josh thought as he looked out at the scenery, "Who knows the fun I could have had with her about showing how the Matrix worked."

Josh chuckled at the thought but then his mind switched when he thought about Kim, how she always had an eye for popular and powerful guys. It had become common knowledge that Kim was the lover of the One. Everyone from Middleton who knew Kim the best would have already known that she would have gone for the powerful guy. Though who would have thought that the One could have been Ron Stoppable of all people?

Josh did have the opportunity in meeting Ron just once before any of them were free from the Matrix. It was during the Halloween incident when Kim had made her lies and after she was pronounced grounded. Ron had suggested trick-or-treating with Josh in the two person unicorn costume. Josh had to admit that the costume was fun though the company left something to be desired. Ron had turned out to be the biggest goofball that Josh had the misfortune of meeting.

"Humph" Josh sneered, "You'd think that the One would be someone who actually could use his power for something other then loosing his own pants in mid-flight."

There were stories that Ron had done that with his new found powers, that he would loose his pants during flight, but as it turned out, Ron tried to straighten the record by saying it only happened once, but still the stories continued. Josh would have continued this train of thought but just then, his cell phone rang. Coming out of his thoughts and nostalgia he reached into his suit coat pocket and pulled it out. The cell phone was one of the kinds that opened up like the communicators in the old Star Trek series, and by a small joke amongst Josh's (Ares') ship, _the Leviticus_, their cell phones all made that Star Trek sound when they were opened and closed. Josh opened his, hearing that sound effect, and held it to his ear.

"Talk to me." Josh answered the phone call smoothly like a jazz singer

"Ok, cutie." Livewire flirted back from the other end of the line. Livewire was the operator for the Leviticus, and a young woman who loved to flirt, especially over the phone. "The Cap said we're about to head back to Neo Zion, so it's time to get out. You've got an exit four blocks east of your current location, in apartment thirteen-c."

"I'm on my way, Live." Josh (Ares) replied as he hung up his cell phone. He looked in the direction he was supposed to go. Four blocks to the east, he saw a small building there, and the sky scrapers leading to it seemed like stepping stones to his exit. He made his running start and leapt over each building like a hurdler in a one-hundred yard race. As Josh "Ares" Mankey made his leaps across the buildings, he did not know that he was being watched by a pair of sinister eyes from the streets below who had plans for him.

After a few minutes of rooftop hopping, Josh had managed to find the building that had the exit. It was a simple apartment building, at least that's how it looked when Josh had landed upon the roof. Then using some lock picking skills that he had learned on his training days, he opened the door to the apartment building.

Not long after that, he came to the thirteenth floor; there he found the apartment door.

"Apartment thirteen-c." Josh had read the sign aloud. He reached out to the door knob, turned it (half expecting it to be locked) and opened the door. Beyond it, he found the apartment to be very dank indeed. Everything there seemed black, not any part of the room seemed finished except for the small table on the other side of the room. The light from the hallway had shinned upon it to show the black rotary phone that was ringing. Josh went into the apartment, reached out to the phone expecting that within a few seconds he'd be back out into the real world. He hand was only inches away from picking up the receiver…

"Hello, _Monkey…_" A sinister voice called from the shadows, "It has been…some time…"

"Huh?" Josh asked being very startled by someone else there. He looked throughout the apartment from the beam of light that came from the hallway hoping to find someone. "Whose there?"

"Just an old friend." The voice spoke, "But then again, we never really were friends. You only really thought of me as a stepping stone to get into KP's cargo pants."

At the sound of the voice, Josh had a very good impression of who it was, but it was the letters _KP_, that really gave it away to him.

"Ron?" Josh called into the darkness as he smiled feeling somewhat relieved that it could just be him, "Is that you?"

"Yes…_and no_…" The voice in the darkness had answered before a figure started to move within the shadows, "You could say that I'm…something more…"

The sound of that voice sent chills through Josh's body. It was terrifying, a feeling that Josh had never experienced for the longest time. Not since he was a child staying up to watch movies his parents warmed him against. He was so afraid, his flesh felt prickly and covered in cold sweat as his blood within his body ran fast and hot. He watched as the figure moved out of the shadows of the apartment and into the light that came from the hallway. The sound of the phone ringing was drowned out by the quick beating of his heart as he gazed at the face of an agent.

"Who…" Josh started to ask but was cut off by a sharp pain in his chest. He looked down to see that the agent had sunk his fingers into his chest and by the light of the hallway he could see a silver liquid like mercury gushing from the wound. It was starting to move all over his body and spread as if it were a great infection.

"I am mister Stoppable." The Agent smiled like a devil as the silver liquid had consumed Josh, "And now I am also you, Mister Mankey."

A few moments later after the silver liquid had consumed him, it soon receded back into the wound created by the Agent. The moment that the liquid was gone, Josh "Ares" Mankey had become an exact copy of the Agent he had met. He stood there in that black and white three piece agent suit and smiled back at the original.

"Indeed, you are." The agent copy nodded as the first walked up to him and adjusted his tie. "Shall we try again?"

"Yes, we shall." The original agent smiled as his copy reached for the ringing phone and escaped into the real world.

110101100110100111001011011100101010110101

Ron "Neo" Stoppable opened his eyes wide as he sat upright with the feeling of sweat all around his neck, forehead and underneath his clothes. He took a deep breath and tried to relax from the dream he had. He couldn't recall very much of it only that it involved Josh 'Ares" Mankey. He wondered why he would be thinking about him, after all Kim was his, she had been ever since that faithful day nearly six months ago, so why now of all times?

Ron reached up to brush the sweat away from his forehead behind his fully grown back blonde bangs.

"Freaky dreams…" Ron commented aloud, "Gotta love them, right KP?"

He had asked his as he looked over at the other side of the queen sized bed to not only find that it was empty of his lover Kim 'Angel' Possible but that it was also made.

"Kim?" He called out but there was no response. Suddenly as he sat in bed something had hit him almost the same kind of response to take ones hand out of the fire because it was hot. Ron jumped out of bed slipped on his boots and headed out the door and up the ladder to the Jack-Room. He moved around the decks of the Neb II like a rabbit in his own burrow. Then again the Neb II had become home for himself and Kim, though since the day they had confessed their love, they've moved into one room and one bed.

It was quite something for Ron to share his bed with someone, but it was Kim; so that seemed to make it a little more comfortable. Still, Ron couldn't think about such things, his mind was preoccupied about where Kim was.

He came to the main deck and with to the Jack Chair area to find Kim in only one of the chairs. He then looked over at the operator Link who didn't see or hear Ron come in. He was just sitting at his station looking at the different monitors that had the Matrix code.

Ron came up behind Link, "Kim's in trouble." He said, his voice filled with the fear he had for what danger Kim could be in.

"Jesus Christ!" Link cried out in shock, he looked over at Ron, he glared at the teen as he grabbed his chest, "I'm getting' too old for this shit, you scared the livin' hell out of me, man!"

"Sorry, Link." Ron quickly apologized, "But this is major, Kim's in trouble."

"How'd you…" Link was about to ask with a very confused look on his face which quickly gave way to a warm smirk, "Never mind, I keep forgetting about the all powerful 'Jedi Mind Trick' that you do. We got a call from Wade needing Kim; she's fighting some guy with a corrupted code at a place called _Camp__Wannaweep_."

"Camp W…_Wannaweep?"_ Ron asked sounding so very much afraid of the name, but really, who could blame him? That particular camp was the setting of some of the most scarring and painful memories of Ron's life, all of it starting with the worse summer he ever had. Thank God it was only one summer, because if it was more than one Ron would have truly gone crazy.

Camp Wannaweep wasn't a summer camp; it was more like an abnormal stress test that had gone completely awry. There were the bugs, all kinds of insects that either crawled or flew, as Ron had put it; his scalp was a twenty-four hour bloodsucker buffet. Then there were the other animals that terrorized him, especially the camps mascot, the chip. The very chimp that had caused all of his fears, phobias, and issues about all things simian and it went without saying that the kids weren't any kinder to him either. All of them so cruel and truly there really is nothing more pure and cruel as a child.

One boy in particular that came back to haunt Ron about two years ago. A boy named Gil who loved to swim in Lake Wannaweep, a lake that Ron had very deep suspicions about, and again who could blame him? The lake was green, its odor was rancid, and though Ron couldn't have been one-hundred percent sure, but he thought he had seen the fish glowing at night. It was because of that Lake that Gil had turned into an amphibious mutant.

There was even one incident where a weather making machine had used the waters from Lake Wannaweep to make toxic snowmen. All the memories of Wannaweep had washed over Ron "Neo" Stoppable as he stood there behind Link looking at the Matrix code. Then he reminded himself that Kim was in trouble, which more than anything made Ron stand straight and decided to face the fear; to finally bury the memories of Wannaweep and save Kim.

"I'm goin' in." Ron said with great assertion and confidence, "Link, load me up."

110101100110100111001011011100101010110101

Inside the Matrix, Kim was in trouble, she had gotten herself into a little more than she could handle. All of it had started just like several other missions that Kim and Ron had been on in the Matrix. They would get a call from Wade to their operator Link, who relayed the information to them and then the mission would start. It was just like the good ole days when they were in the Matrix unaware of the truth about the real world. Though it was a little different than it was back in those days, Ron would have a bigger role than just being the distraction. The mission would be over in a manner of minutes. Until Kim had been going into the Matrix on her own more and more in the past few weeks, perhaps it was because she wasn't used to being saved, though it was for more personal reasons.

The mission that Kim had gotten into trouble with was that there were some hikers being held prisoner at Camp Wannaweep. Kim went in and soon discovered that she should have waited for Ron, because holding the hikers prisoner was a creature that Kim had hoped she would never run into again: Gill, the very boy that loved to swim in the toxic lake who then mutated into the vengeful amphibious monster.

When Kim had arrived on the scene and confronted him, Gill seemed disappointed.

"Where's Ron?" Gill asked, his voice sounding as if it was bubbling like talking underwater, "No Matter, when you're in danger he'll come runnin'."

"Don't be so sure." Kim smirked as she took her stance, "I've learned some new tricks."

Gill looked at Kim Possible with such contempt and hatred in his red eyes, he had known that Ron had feelings for Kim and she had the same for him. It seemed truly unfair to Gill that everything seemed to be going so well for Ron, that not only did he have a normal life but he had the love of a cheerleader. That more than anything caused Gill's through to rumble until he began to spit the mutagenic sludge at Kim. He had expected the slime to cover Kim, but to his surprise and dismay, Kim had dodged all of the onslaughts as if she knew the path of each wad before they were fired. Kim was doing flips, back flips, side flips, and cartwheels into the forest where Gill had followed.

"Too fast for you, Fish Face?" Kim had mocked Gill in a very smug way as she dodged another smile ball. As Kim had dodged each shot, she kept looking around the trees of the forest to find the missing hikers being held to the trunks by Gill's slime. She looked back at the mutant who was breathing heavily after spending so much of his slime, "Why don't you be a good little freak and release the hikers?"

"Oh, there not going anywhere." Gill refused in defiance, "And neither are you!"

Kim heard that rumbling in Gill's throat once again and saw that she should start making her dodges, but once she made her step to the side for her cartwheel, she felt her foot hit something that caused her to slip. As she made her slip she started to concentrate to try to regain balance, but it was too late. Gill had already fired his sludge and it slammed against Kim's wrist and its force knocked it to the nearby tree trunk. The moment it hit, she tried to pull away but Gill saw his opportunity and fired another ball of sludge that trapped Kim's other wrist, she tried desperately to move or break free, but it was just like before. That first return to Camp Wannaweep and the first meeting of Gill. Ron had escaped from Gill and had saved the day for the very first time. Though trapped to that tree, Kim had never felt so helpless and that was a feeling she still truly hated. She wanted to see Ron again, but unlike before she never questioned, in her fear and helplessness she just wanted her lover.

Kim looked to see that Gill had stepped closer to Kim. Already she felt sick to her stomach, it was that fishy putrid smell that Gill had all about him. He smelled like a combination of sour milk and rotten fish. Kim could already feel her stomach turning even though she had tried to remind herself that none of it was real. Despite that fact, it sure as hell felt real to her. It became worse when Gill reached out and ran his webbed hand over the surface of Kim's coat.

"Hmmm." Gill admired, "Is that real leather?"

His webbed hand then ran from the coat to the vest that Kim wore underneath. She felt his slime ooze over her exposed midriff and that was when she couldn't take anymore.

"Touch me…" Kim growled at Gill, "And that fin will never touch anything ever again!"

Kim no longer acted upon thought, it had become pure instinct when she couldn't take being touched by Gill's cold, scaly, and most of all, slimy hands. Using her restraints for leverage, she brought up her legs for a good hard kick at Gill's chest. The amphibious mutant flew backwards until his back had hit the tree. Instead of anger, he came back with a smirk on his face.

"Feisty as ever, huh Kimmie?" Gill chuckled as he approached the helpless Kim, "If you won't keep that pretty mouth shut, my slime will do it for you!"

Gill again made that noise that made Kim think of the tweebs whenever they would hock spit balls. Kim had shut her eyes in anticipation of what would come, but she still wished that Ron would show up like he did in the times before when Kim tried to do things on her own. As she heard the sound of Gill spitting out his sludge at Kim, it was soon followed by something very unexpected.

"What?" Gill had asked sounding very shocked

Kim reopened her eyes to see that the slime ball that Gill had spat was frozen still in mid-air. It looked as though all time had stopped around it and that was when Kim already knew who it was. While Gill looked at it in confused wonderment he was soon faced with a mock as the slime ball struck him right in his face.

The amphibious mutant growled as he clawed away the sludge, "Who did that?" He demanded as he looked around the forest becoming paranoid about what it was that caused the event to happen. As he looked around, his answer came from a much unexpected source.

"Hey, slime boy!" A young and confident voice called out, "Up here!"

Instantly Kim and Gill looked up to the sky where the voice came from. They found him, Ron Stoppable, floating in the air, his feet touching the tops of the trees. His clothes had changed since his time at the beginning of his freedom. Since he had taken the name of his predecessor, Morpheus had suggested that he take Neo's clothes as well. It was a very long duster that reached down to his ankles, it had a high neck and it was very black while inside it was a deep scarlet. At first Ron wasn't accustomed to such a jacket because it was so long and he had never worn something like it. Then again, during his superman flight with the coat, he felt very warm inside it.

Standing at the tops of the trees, the coat blew in the wind like a super hero's cape as he had his arms folded across his chest. He then unfolded his arms and slowly came down to the ground as soft as a feather landing upon a still lake. At first he looked at Kim then looked towards Gill who saw his hideous reflection in Ron's mirror lens sunglasses.

"You always get better things than me!" Gill cried his injustice at Ron, "First you get to be around cheerleaders and now you got cooler powers! It's just not fair!"

Ron rolled his eyes from behind his mirror sunglasses; he thought to himself, "These cooler powers have a high price, Gill. If I could give them away, I would."

He looked at Gill and allowed the memories once again wash over him. He looked at each memory as if they were stones that he wanted to cast into the sea. That's all he wanted, to cast the memories of Camp Wannaweep into the sea. He took his stance and held up his hand to Gill taking one last look at the freak before he mentioned his sentiment to Kim.

"Might as well get rid of one of the trouble makers, what do you say, KP?" He asked

"Ron!" Kim cried out already having a few preconceived notions, "Don't kill him!"

"I'm not going to kill him, KP." Ron spoke in that tone of seriousness that Kim had become accustomed to, "I'm going to free him of the Curse of Camp Wannaweep."

Kim looked as the very fabric of the Matrix began to move, wave, and wobble causing the trees and the ground start to flow like waves of an ocean. Until the waves of the Matrix came down upon Gill like a great tsunami, the wave had turned Gill's slimy and scaly skin turned a darker shade of green. He looked at his own sliminess turning to that unfamiliar shade and he screamed. At first Gill only screamed in panic until whatever the infection was starting to sting him, first it felt like a hot prickling but then turned to burning. It was the kind of burning sensation that made Gill think that every inch of his skin was on fire. Until his darkened skin began to crack like dry mud in the desert sun and a light came from within the cracks from within Gill's skin.

That was when Gill had exploded, pieces of his slimy self flying in all different directions like shrapnel from a grenade. IT was seeing those pieces flying towards her that caused Kim to close her eyes. She opened her eyes once again after a few seconds and could not believe her own eyes at the sight she saw.

In the grass and mud there was a ring of what used the be the slime and sludge that belonged to Gill, yet in the center of it was a young boy that was roughly Ron's age dressed in nothing except his boxer shorts. Kim had met the boy in this form once before, it was during a cheerleader competition that was held there at Camp Wannaweep. Gil was there too as a schools mascot, he was completely normal, face, body, hair, and everything. Yet, he had some ulterior motives, Ron was suspicious about it the whole time, and he soon found that out when there was a toxic Lagoon near Lake Wannaweep.

Ron came up to the boy lying in the center of all that sludge. He unbuttoned his duster and wrapped the boy in it. He stood up and looked down at Gil and thought to himself that he was truly free of his past. With that last encounter with him, the Curse of Camp Wannaweep was broken. For the first time in Ron's life he felt relieved about that place, but there was no time to smell the roses. He kept his eyes on Gil.

"He might still be trouble." He said before he turned around to face Kim, "But at least he won't be able to spit up on people."

"You never cease to amaze me, Ron." Kim sighed as she smiled sheepishly at Ron while he approached her, "Think you can get me loose now?"

Ron came close to Kim and gave her a light scolding look, "You ran off and left me, Kim." He said smugly while crossing his arms over his chest.

"But you were just so _cute_ sleeping there in our bed, Ron." Kim explained rather over dramatically, "I couldn't bear to disturb you…so please get me off this tree."

"Nope." Ron said as he turned his back on his lover, "Not gonna do it."

"Please, Ron." Kim whined giving a few fake sniffles hoping to touch Ron's soft side.

"No." Ron said flatly not even taking a glimpse back at Kim, "And it won't work."

"I thought you _loved me…_" Kim whimpered sadly

"Oh, come on." Ron sighed, "You know…oh I am _so stupid_…" He had spun around to look at Kim to see what her lips were pursed and here eyebrows bent, and her eyes looking at Ron so longingly. That was Kim's very famous and signature puppy-dog pout, "Damn, Kim. You're so cute when you do that…you really know my weak spots."

"Boo-yah…" Kim said smoothly

Ron brought up his hands to the sludge that was holding Kim to the tree, it was just like the Midas touch where everything he touched turned to gold. Though what Ron did was, he made the sludge turn dry and it cracked, releasing Kim from the tree. The flakes of the dried sludge chipping away and vanishing into dust as Kim threw her arms around Ron's neck and laid her lips upon his. Of course the whole argument that he had with Kim was just for fun, similar to the things that they would do in bed, switching roles and exchanging power for their own adult entertainment.

They broke the embrace of their lips.

"I know where to poke your soft white under-belly, Ron." Kim smiled as she nuzzled her nose against Ron's.

"But that puppy-dog pout wasn't fair, Kim." Ron quietly whinnied as his sunglasses slipped down his nose.

"All's fair in love and war, baby." Kim smirked as she pushed his sunglasses back upon his face with her fore finger before she purred, "Besides…I'll just have to make it up to you later on _tonight, hmm?_"

"Oh yeah." Ron smiled knowing what kind of treatment he was going to get when the got out of the Matrix and to their quarters on the Neb II. Though thinking about Kim and how long they had been together, something else entered Ron's mind. Something that needed the advice of an old friend, "Do you think you can free the hostages on your own, KP?" Ron asked looking at the unconscious and trapped hikers.

"Sure." Kim said as she let go of Ron, "But you can free them more easily than me, right?"

Ron paused for a moment before he explained seriously to Kim, "I've gotta go, Kim. I've…got to meet someone to find out a few answers."

"Oh…ok. Can I come with?" Kim asked as she looked away to tend to the hikers. Yet there was no response, she looked in back of her to find out that she was alone. She then looked up into the air and saw a small figure flying away into the clouds. She couldn't help but smile as she watched him go. Though when she thought about what Ron said before he left she couldn't help but say aloud, "It's still bothering you, isn't it Ron?" She asked rather sadly.

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Meanwhile in the real world, onboard the Neb II, Link was once again floored by Ron's manipulation of the Matrix code. He simply waited like what operators always do; wait for a call for help to come in for someone in the Matrix. Sitting at his station the quiet hum of the Jack Chamber was broken by Morpheus.

"Good Morning, Link." He said coming into the chamber

"Good morning, sir." Link greeted back keeping his eyes glued to the monitors waiting for something to happen that would need his immediate attention.

"Those two are off to an early start." Morpheus observed, "Did they get a call from Wade again?" He had asked as he leaned over Link's shoulder to look at the coded screens of the Matrix.

"Kim did." Link had answered still keeping his eyes on the screens as he explained, "She didn't want to wake up Ron, so she went in alone…but you know Ron…"

"Went in a short while later when she found herself in danger," Morpheus had predicted as he nodded, but then marveled at the boy, "His senses are astounding, he's already surpassed Neo."

"Yeah." Link agreed in awe of it until he heard a ringing in his headphones, "That must be her, I'll put it on speaker…" he reached over and pressed the button that received the call, "Operator?"

"Hey, this is Angel." Kim's voice sounded over the speaker as she referred herself by the codename that Ron had chosen for her, "Can I get an exit somewhere in the area maybe?"

"Roger that, Angel." Link replied as he ran a search for an exit within the Matrix, "There was an exit at a payphone at the entrance of Camp Wannaweep, but it's been cut. I'm looking for another one…got one! An old farm house, a third of a mile northeast of your position, you can't miss it."

Yet, before Angel could even make a response, Morpheus made his commanding objection known, "Must I remind you of the dangers of going into the Matrix alone, Angel?" His scolding evident in his voice like an upset father.

"So not the drama, Morph…um…sir." Kim replied confidently still remembering her place in the chain of command on the Neb II, "Besides Ron…um…Neo destroyed the Agents, remember?"

"There are other dangers in the Matrix besides the Agents, you realize." Morpheus retained his concern for his crew member.

"Speaking of R…Neo." Kim corrected herself remembering that inside the Matrix, Ron would be referred by his Matrix name, "Where is he now?"

"Hold on, I'm looking…" Link said as he typed at the keyboards of his station and made his search for Ron 'Neo' Stoppable, until he found him. When he did he couldn't help but smile as he told his findings to Kim, "He's over New York, and he's doing his Superman thing."

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In the clouds over New York City, Ron "Neo" Stoppable was flying just like a super-hero, the clouds parted as he flew through them causing them to lap much like waters made by a speed boat. All the while, he flew without that long duster on, he could feel both the chill of the high altitude though his dress clothes as well as the prickling heat of the sun. As he flew he could also feel his little friend, Rufus, squirming and shivering in his pockets until he started to cling to the fabric of Ron's pocket.

"Hang on, buddy." Ron said as he brought his hand to the lump in his pocket, "We're almost there."

The second he said that, he could feel the Oracle's presence as if her code sent out some kind of resonance throughout the Matrix like waves of a pond. Sensing that he tilted his body upwards and he twirled around amongst the clouds with the grace of an ice skater. As he floated there amongst the clouds he looked down into the city to the building that he had come to many times before. With one push Ron rocketed down to the ground causing the clouds to swirl behind him as if they were becoming the cone of a tornado. He came closer and closer until he somersaulted in the air and landed on the buildings rooftop.

He stood back up and still couldn't' help but marvel his own powers despite the weight he felt on his shoulders at that time. He had to find out the answers, that was why he went down into the apartment building to the floor with the singular door. He took in a deep breath fearing the answers that he may find out, reached up, and knocked on the door.

Upon Ron's second knock, the door opened, and standing there was the pudgy ten-year-old genius, Wade. He looked up at Ron with that usual Wade smile.

"Hey Ron." He said happily, "Come in, mom's been expecting you."

Ron walked in past Wade who closed the door and had returned to his room, While Ron walked into the rest of the Oracle's apartment. The fear and anxiety still growing and growing like a snowball turning into an avalanche. He had come into the living room where he found Seraph and Sati, playing chess; Sati sitting upon the couch while Seraph was sitting cross-legged upon the floor. The two of them had stopped their game to give Ron a welcoming grin when he heard the rustling of wooden beads. He looked to the doorway to the kitchen where the Oracle was standing. She was looking at Ron with such a smile like a grandmother seeing her grandchild coming for a visit.

"You're late, kiddo." She said to Ron, but she told him this in such a sweet grandmother-like way that it was nowhere near insulting, "I figured that you would have come to see me right after what the Merovingian had told you, though you tried to be a man and ignore the fact that you're scarred to the point of crappin' yourself."

Ron felt floored once again by the Oracle's bluntness but in doing it in such a sweet and endearing way. At the same time he was also in awe of how dead on she was as if she had kept a very close eye on him for the past six months. That she also knew how fearful he was about the Merovingian's prediction, while keeping in mind of so many other factors.

The Oracle then waved and gestured for Ron to follow her into the kitchen. Though Ron was starting to have second thoughts about finding out the answers to his questions he had, he followed the Oracle anyway. As he passed by the veil of wooden beads, he felt as if he had strolled into a sweet smelling and warm cloud. Ron took a deep sniff of the air and concluded what it was.

"Cookies?" He asked

"Bingo." The Oracle smiled, "Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chip, and Raisin, your favorite as I recall. Please, have a seat while I get them out."

Ron reached up and pulled off his sunglasses as he sat down at the old 1960's table that the Oracle had. At the same time, Ron's pet Rufus popped out of his pocket and scurried to the table liking his lips and bucked teeth in anticipation of the cookies.

The two of them watched as the Oracle took the tray out and scooped the cookies off the backing pan and onto a small dish. Ron and Rufus ogled the cookies like men watching clothing coming off a stripper, until the Oracle brought the cookies to the table.

"Ok, dig in." She smiled at Ron as he dove into the plate devouring the cookies as if there were no tomorrow.

"Hey, eat the cookies, kid. Not me." The Oracle laughed as she pulled her hands back from the plate she set before Ron.

Ron did have the decency to stop stuffing his face and look at the Oracle to mumble the word "Sorry" though it came out more like "Fowwy" with a mouthful of the Oracle's delicious cookies.

"Ok." The Oracle asked as she sat down across from Ron and light up her cigarette, "Now you are going to ask me your questions?"

Ron swallowed his mouthful of cookies feeling very cotton mouthed as he thought about his questions. As he thought more about it, a very obvious fact came up that never occurred to him until the Oracle had asked him that question.

"Why should I ask?" Ron asked swallowing more of the left over cookies in his mouth, "You already know what I'm going to ask, right?"

"Humor me." The Oracle smiled as she had taken another puff of her cigarette.

Ron had paused for a few seconds knowing that there was no way out of the situation.

"The Merovingian told me six months ago, when he and I met for the second time," Ron began, his anxiety bubbling to the surface in his voice, "He said that I would be gone in seven months, just like the others before me. So am I going…to…to…die soon? As in…next month?"

"Well kiddo," The Oracle began avoiding eye contact with the worried teen as she set her cigarette in the near by ashtray, "Human beings are really hard to predict…"

"But…" Ron gulped, "You've known everything else…so…you must know…please, I don't care if its bad news…I want to be ready."

"Ron…" The Oracle said as she reached out and took Ron's hand in her own, "No one is promised another day, not even me."

"So…" Ron gulped once again, he could feel the tears starting to build over his eyes and at their corners, "I'm going to die in a month…._aren't I?_"

"No…" The Oracle shook her head before taking a deep breath to deliver her news, "Three weeks, two days, five hours, six minutes…and seven seconds."

The news had slammed upon Ron's shoulders as if it was some kind of cartoon piano that had been dropped upon his head. As he faced the idea of his mortal life coming to an end, it was too much. He cupped his face into his hands feeling the tears leak into his palms. Never before in his life had he cried in such a way, not even as a child had he cried like that.

"I wish you didn't tell me that…" Ron said as his voice cracked from his tears.

"I'm sorry, kiddo. I really am." The Oracle apologized sincerely, "I do wish that I could give a good person like you some good news. But to tell you the truth you are meant to know the time of your end, probably one of the few people in this world that really are. You've got a hard battle to fight before your time is up. One you have to win not with your powers, but with your words."

As Ron thought about the Oracle's answers, he began to truly regret coming to find out these answers. He came to the same conclusion that a traitor onboard the original Nebuchadnezzar came to; ignorance is bliss. As he began to regret his decision to come to the Oracle he began to think of a bigger picture…and the other person in it.

"Kim." Ron uttered as he brought his face out of his hands to look at the Oracle, "What's going to happen to Kim? Is she going to be ok?"

"Kimberly Anne 'Angel' Possible?" The Oracle asked as Ron was a little confused about why the Oracle used all of her name as well as her Matrix name. "Well…your death's going to hurt her horribly…damn near break her, but she'll live. Not long after your passing, she'll get back with the love of her life, have a kid, live to be a grandma, and die a happy, content, and fulfilled woman."

"Oh…" Ron uttered with a smile that was sad, right then and there he truly felt confused. He wasn't sure if this was good news or bad, because he would be dead but she would be happy, "If she's happy…then it's…all good…."

"Human beings are funny creatures indeed." The Oracle mused as she took up her cigarette once again, "There aren't any other creatures on the face of the earth, past or present, that make such bonds as humans do. Sure there are exceptions, lots of them even, but when it comes to true absolute love, it's there from the start and nothing can stand in its way, not even death. Kim loves you, Ron, with everything she's got. Remember that, don't let what anyone says to you, or even do to you make you second guess that. Kim would even face the devil himself to stay by your side…and that says a lot, it says a lot about both of you."

Ron gave her a weak smile; he stood up looking down at Rufus who looked as worried as Ron did.

"I am sorry, kiddo." The Oracle apologized again, "It does seem completely unfair, but…I guess that's how it goes, huh?"

She reached across the table to the very last cookie on the plate, she held it to Ron, "Here, eat one more and then go home to your sweetheart. After a good afternoon nap in her arms, I promise you, you'll feel right as rain."

Ron reached out for the last cookie, while Rufus climbed back into his pocket. He looked at the cookie for a moment before he began to take small bites out of it, chewed slowly as he thought about the Oracle's answers before he headed out the door.

"Ron." The Oracle called. Ron had stopped to look back at the Oracle one last time, "For all it's worth, I believe you can make a difference."

"Thanks." Ron whispered before he took one last bite of the cookie and left the Oracle's apartment.

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Ron gasped as he opened his eyes to find himself back in the Jack Chamber of the Neb II. Standing over him was Kim 'Angel' Possible who was disconnecting the jack from the back of Ron's head. She looked back at Ron, her long ginger hair draping down, nearly tickling him, and her green eyes filled with concern.

"What kept you?" Kim asked, "I was getting worried."

"Um…It's nothing. Nothing important anyway." Ron said as he tried his best to fake a smile

"Are you sure?" Kim asked, narrowing her eyes at Ron.

"Yeah." Ron tried to reassure Kim then decided to fake a small yawn but then found a real one coming through, "Just tired, KP."

"You both have had a busy morning." Morpheus interjected as Kim was helping Ron out of his jack chair, "It will be a few hours before we reach the surface and the Atmospheric Recovery plant at Jericho. So go and rest, because we have a lot of work to do when we get there."

Kim and Ron nodded silently as the two of them had left the Jack Chamber for their quarters. During that whole walk, Ron kept running through the things that the Oracle had told him. Even though he tried to put so much of it out of his mind, it was still there playing over and over again, like a broken instant replay.

It still ran fresh in Ron's mind when he reached his and Kim's quarters, but he was quickly snapped out of it when he was inside the place he shared with Kim. He had turned to look at Kim who was giving him a glare that would scare the Agents themselves.

"Um…" Ron uttered smiling sheepishly, "What's up, KP?"

"Don't _what's up, KP,_ me, Ron." Kim drilled as she stepped closer to Ron, her red bangs bouncing with each heavy and menacing step she took, "Are you going to tell me what's bothering you or do I have to beat it out of you?"

"I…" Ron gulped, "honestly have no idea what you're talking about…" Ron tried to look away but he could feel Kim's emerald eyes burning through him to the deep dark secret within his soul.

"We just made a long walk from the Jack Chamber to here." Kim observed and pointed out, "That's a three to four minute walk and you were dead quite. You're never quiet that long, _especially_ out of the Matrix."

Ron didn't say a word in response to Kim's observations, all he could think about was the prediction the Oracle made about her. That after his death she would get back with the one she loves, gives birth to a child, and dies a happy grandmother. He looked away feeling tears build up in his eyes again. As he looked away trying to hid his building tears, he felt Kim coming up behind him, she wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his back.

"I know you went to the Oracle, Ron." Kim stated her voice changing to a tone that sounded soothing to Ron's ears, "I don't understand why you went. Is it because of the Merovingian's seven month thing?"

Ron raised his head and turned around to look at Kim with wide eyes while she in turned looked up at him with a look of discovery on her face.

"That's it, isn't it?" Kim gulped lightly, her face growing slightly pale as she asked, "What did the Oracle tell you?"

"She said…" Ron trailed knowing full well that he couldn't bear to tell Kim that he only had three weeks left to live, so he had to cover it up, "She said that he was full of crap, KP. I'm going to be just fine. It's funny how we can get all tore up over nothing like that, huh?"

Kim only wrapped her arms around Ron once again resting her head upon his shoulder. She held him tightly in her firm embrace.

"You never could lie to me, Ron." She whispered snuggling against his warm neck.

"Guess not, Kim." Ron whispered hugging her back allowing his fingers to intertwine with her ginger hair, but his heart was in pain knowing the truth that was there as well as the knowledge of what will happen. The two broke the embrace; Kim looked up at Ron staring deeply into his brown eyes.

"If what the Merovingian said was true…" Kim stated never breaking her eye contact with Ron, "We have a month left together, right?"

"They may be wrong." Ron answered confidently, "They're both computer programs, and a lot can happen in a month's time, right? In a month and a day I will probably be fine and we'll be sitting here laughing about it." He said it trying to sound confident and giving Kim his best goofy smile.

"Maybe you're right." Kim nodded as a tear rolled down her face, but she then blushed when Ron reached over to brush the tear away. "But…" Kim's tone changed to a very playful one when she looked at Ron, "Just in case, I'm going to take advantage of every second I have with you." Her voice came down to a low whisper as she moved her face closer to Ron.

"Maybe that isn't such a bad idea." Ron whispered back, just before his and Kim's lips had met in a gentle kiss at first but then quickly turned into deep passion that was filled with desperation. All the while, Ron kept thinking that the Oracle had told him that after an afternoons nap in her arms, he'd be right as rain.

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Far away on the other side of the world in the place that was once called the Cradle of Civilization was the Machine City that was called Zero One or at least that was what it was called until the first war between man and machines. As one of the desperate last resort the humans had detonated a bomb to destroy the heart of the machines, but it work, like the humans, the machines were resilient. From the ruins of Zero One, the new city was built from the ruins, and so the city was then christened, Zero One Two. A city that was not just the capital of the Machine World, the entire city was a machine in itself serving the function of sustaining the machines that lived there.

Deep within that living metropolis there was a lab, a large lab in which a few small working machines that looked like spiders crawled around six pods arranged in a half-circle. The pods were much like the ones that the machines had in the power plants; oval shaped like an egg, transparent with metal frames holding it together and filled with that reddish-pink liquid.

Each pod contained one person, there were five miles and only one female out of the six that were there, and all of them were mortally injured in some form or another. Some of them had gashes in their chests as if they had been hacked into, others seemed like they were impaled, and one of them was undamaged aside from the reddish black holes in his face where his eyes used to be.

As these six people "slept" in their pods, one of the spider machines was looking at the screens that displayed the information.

Alpha Reactivation Sequence: Online 

Alpha Reanimation Sequence: Online 

Alpha Life Support System: Online 

Alpha RSI Upload: Stand-by 

Alpha Unit One: Reanimation Sequence ETC: 21 days 9 hours 12 minutes 

Alpha Unit Two: Reanimation Sequence ETC: 21 days 6 hours 2 minutes 

Alpha Unit Three: Reanimation Sequence ETC: 21 days 2 hours 5 minutes 

Alpha Unit Four: Reanimation Sequence ETC: 20 days 6 hours 14 minutes 

Alpha Unit Five: Reanimation Sequence ETC: 20 days 1 hour 14 minutes 

Alpha Unit Six: Reanimation Sequence ETC: 19 days 21 hours 3 minutes 

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Ron opened his eyes quickly and let out a sharp gasp from the nightmare that he had again. He tried to move but couldn't and he couldn't even breathe very well. That was when he looked down to find a pair of slender arms holding onto him. He then remembered quickly how his afternoon of passion was shared with Kim; he never would have guessed that Kim would be such a wildcat in the bedroom. Then again, he probably surprised Kim with his own sexual prowess.

As he moved, or tried to, Kim was naked and trembling under the blanket. Looking at her, Ron couldn't help but grow a contented smile on his lips remembering that Kim had trembled once before when she was lying atop of him while covered in sweat. He leaned over and kissed Kim on the forehead.

"Don't worry, KP." He whispered holding Kim in his arms, "As long as I'm able, I will never leave you..._ever._"

With that quiet declaration, Ron closed his eyes and joined Kim in her slumber.

To be continued…


	10. Upgraded Chapter 2

**The ****Kimmatrix****: Matrix Upgraded**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and ****Turles**

**Chapter 2: Fire and Ice**

"_O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock. The meat it feeds on."_

William Shakespeare

_Othello Act 3 Scene 3_

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"Welcome to Jericho." Morpheus said to his crew as they had approached the city.

The city of Jericho was enormous, about the same size as Las Vegas to the eyes of Kim and Ron who were awed by what they had seen out the windows of the Neb II. The city was circular with roads that divided the city into sections like a pie, while spreading out from the center were concentric rings that made the roads of Jericho look like a bulls-eye. On the far outskirts, there were towers (twelve total), where each road that divided the city into pie sections, met with a tower as the road's final destination. From each of the towers came a kind of glowing, bluish gas that made Ron think about the propane gas tank his dad used to light his grill. While the towers themselves looked like spikes or narrow teeth of an unhinged mouth. At the very center of Jericho, there was a great tower that rose high above the other spikes.

The city seemed oddly creepy to Kim and Ron, with those towers, spikes, glowing gas, and all of it so dark, with the only light coming from lights within the city and the lightning from the abnormally black sky. The whole place looked like some kind of monster that was sitting on a rock waiting to swallow the Neb II as it passed by. Just like those creatures that Kim and Ron had seen on the Learning Channel that would sit at the bottom of the sea swallowing up their unsuspecting prey.

"It isn't much." Morpheus stated modestly about the city, "It's mostly a scientific community for the Atmospheric Purification Plant."

"We've been underground so long." Kim sighed as she looked up at the black sky, "It almost feels weird to be above ground for a change."

"You said it, KP." Ron smiled as the Neb II approached the great center tower.

"Jericho Control" Link called through his headphones, "This is Nebuchadnezzar Two requesting permission to dock, over."

There was a pause as the Neb II hovered a dozen yards from the center tower.

"Copy that, Nebuchadnezzar II." The control voice responded, "You are clear to dock at section eleven-a."

"Roger that, Jericho Control." Link responded as he took the controls of the Neb II and landed upon one of the many divided sections of Jericho. It was the section that was closest to the wall separating towers eleven and twelve. As the Neb II stretched out its landing gear, the floor beneath them opened up automatically. The floor of Jericho opened sideways and landed upon something that looked similar to that of a helicopter landing platform with the painted circle and H in the center of it.

The Neb II landed, and its landing pad lowered down underneath the floor of Jericho. Through the windows of the cockpit the crew looked out into a landing area. It was a large, underground, circular structure with a central pillar, a high ceiling, and all around were dozens of ships, all of them upon those section platforms. It was Jericho's Docking Garage; all around there were people tending to the needs of the different hovercrafts. The Neb II was facing outward towards the rest of the garage; there they saw something or at least Ron was the first to spot it. It was a ship a few sections away and to the right.

"The Leviticus." Morpheus stated when he saw what Ron was looking at, "She's the Neb Two's sister ship, almost the exact same make."

"Leviticus?" Kim asked, "Isn't that Josh's ship?"

"Oh great." Ron rolled his eyes, "Monkey's here."

"_Mankey_." Kim corrected Ron, but then she couldn't help but smirk at him and hug his arm as she teased, "You're not still jealous are you?"

"Well…ya know…he _was_ your first, KP." Ron stated, fumbling slightly over his words like a kid trying to give his first presentation to his classmates, "And the say that a girl usually falls in love with her first…um…"

"Actually," Kim said as she leaned in to whisper in Ron's ear, "That's a girl falls in _love_ with the best…and you're my best friend, and you were _way_ better then _Josh._"

"Thanks…" Ron blinked, "I think." He tried to process the information, but with Kim holding his arm and giving him a small wink, he let a smile cross his lips when Kim's hands reached down to his and tenderly and lovingly held them in her own.

With the Neb II docked, the crew departed with their bags in hand, ready to get to work with the scientists and other people in Jericho with the Atmospheric Purification Plant. The five of them walked their way through the stench of motor oil and ozone caused by the electrical sparks of the hover pads of each craft.

They got into a small elevator that went straight up. It felt like such a nice change from what they had done back in Neo Zion where the elevators went down so much. Though the facility itself was very much like Neo Zion, very grimy, dingy, and dimly lit with florescent lights; the kind that could make a person sick by just having the misfortune of being under them. Ron was grateful that Kim was there at his side, though the thoughts about _Mankey_made him a little nervous, and it helped even less with what happened next.

"I guess the rumors are true." A voice called ahead, just as Ron was looking at Kim, "The partners became a couple."

Ron, Kim, and the rest of the Neb II crew looked ahead, and there, leaning against the hallway wall, was Josh Mankey. Looking at him with that smug look on his face, Ron groaned quietly, hoping that it wouldn't be heard by Kim, but, as he approached, he blinked in confusion for a moment. It was one of those moments in Ron's life where he thought there was something there, but when he looked a second time it was gone. He tried to replay the moment in his head and, though he could never be absolutely sure, he thought that Josh Mankey was someone else for a moment.

"I could have sworn that I saw an Agent standing there…" Ron thought to himself, "I need to relax…"

The look on Ron's face made his lover next to him reach up and touch his shoulder.

"You ok, Ron?" Kim asked worriedly while Ron rubbed his eyes for a second.

"Yeah, KP." Ron answered smiling back at his lady love, "My eyes are acting up a little, probably just the low light."

"You sure?" Kim asked again

"Yeah, I am." Ron smiled before he turned to Josh Mankey and smiled at him, even thought the smile was the hardest thing that he had to pull off. "Hey Josh."

"How are you doing, Ron?" Josh smiled. Yet that smile and the look in his eyes struck something in Ron. It was that strange glimmer in Josh's eyes that seemed…sinister…yet, that was quickly set aside when Josh got up from the wall and came over to hug Kim. Watching Josh hug Kim instantly flared Ron's blood as if a fire had been sparked within him. He was automatically reminded how much he hated Josh _Monkey_. Even more so when he watched Josh's hands were traveling down Kim's back inch by careful inch as Josh held Kim in his embrace. His hands were at the very edge of her back near the rise of Kim's ass, and Ron's blood felt like a magma flow ready to burst.

"I've missed you…KP." Josh whispered, yet it was loud enough for Ron to hear, and that was when the volcano blew. Or, rather, it would've blown were it not for Kim's intervention. She was feeling…no, she knew that Ron was developing that jealous glare. Still, the fact that Josh was whispering that pet name that only Ron called her by into her ear was very creepy indeed and she had to get away.

"Yeah, Josh." She said nervously as she broke the embrace, "You heard right. Ron and I are now officially a couple…as in I'm not _single_ anymore." With the embrace broken she went over to Ron's side and wrapped her arms around Ron's left arm, laying her head upon his shoulder and pressing Josh to back off in a very round-about sort of way.

"Would you like to meet and have lunch later, KP?" Josh asked suggestively, "And maybe…get to know each other again? For old times sake?"

"I don't think that would be such a good idea, Josh." Kim said; her green eyes were darting from Josh to her lover who seemed to gain a look on his face that Kim not only knew but could feel. Despite the fact that she reassured him that she was over Josh, even during that Moodulator incident, Ron seemed to still think that there was something going on between her and Josh. Though Kim was mildly thankful that this meeting wasn't within the Matrix, where Ron could gut Josh with thoughts alone, which was obviously what Ron wanted to do to him.

"If you'll excuse us, Joshua…or rather Ares" Morpheus inserted as he stepped in between Ron, Kim, and Josh, "we have to get settled in before our night shift."

"Yes, sir, Morpheus." Josh smiled at the commanding officer before glancing back at the couple, "See you later Kim, and I know I'll see you later, Ron." He then turned his back and walked down the hall.

"What's got into him?" Kim asked shaking her head. She glanced at Ron before she leaned over and pressed her lips against his. It wasn't anything deep like what they would do when they were alone. It was a small and innocent peck on the lips, but it still left Ron reeling from the spontaneity of it.

"What was that for?" He asked as his white and freckled cheeks started to blush a light pink.

"Thought you might need some reassurance" Kim stated with a smile before moving back to Ron's side and slipping her hand into his. She then leaned over and whispered into his ear, "And if we have time before we have to help, I may have to give you some more reassurance."

Ron blushed as the crew of the Neb II moved on to the living area inside the central tower of Jericho.

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As the Neb II crew was resting up at Jericho, inside the Matrix there was some concern at the Possible house.

"Are Kim and Ron back yet?" Tim Possible sighed next to his brother at the breakfast table. The two of them had been a little concerned since it did seem suspicious that in the past six months Kim and Ron had gone on longer missions then normal. Even mom and dad seemed extra busy at the hospital and the lab. Hence the reason for a frequent baby sitter.

"Kim and Ron are always the better sitters." The twin brother Jim had stated

"Much better than Old Lady Granger." Tim agreed, "She's as dull as they come, all she cares about are books and cats."

It was true; Old Lady Granger was an old spinster who was used as a back-up sitter when Kim and Ron were away on their missions. Just the thought of her coming, bringing her cat Fluffers and her old books filled with snobbish stories made Jim and Tim cringe equally. As the two of them cringed and moped about it, their mother walked in with a smile on her face, before she handed the two of them their breakfast.

"Come now, boys." Misses Possible tried to explain to the boys, "You know Ron and Kim are on a very important mission."

"Important mission?" Tim asked as he cocked his left eyebrow wondering about the connotative meaning of _important mission._

"Bet they ran off together and are probably married now." Jim nodded with a great devilish smile upon his face.

"We'll be Uncle Tim and Jim in no time." Tim agreed pumping his fist into the air as if it was a goal to be reached like the peak of a mountain.

"Yeah." Jim nodded rubbing his hands together with a mischievous look on his face, "As sexually frustrated as those two are, it will be no time before they start the baby productions line!"

"They are not married." Misses Possible interjected, hoping to stop the boys' train of thought from going any further. "And there will be no babies anytime soon…I hope…" She then looked at the boys rather scolding and asked, "And how do you two know about sexual frustration?"

"Um…" The twins looked at each other hoping to come up with a good answer and they answered in unison, "Television!"

Misses Possible couldn't help but smile at her boys knowing the truth about sex. She then looked at her watch.

"Miss Granger will be here in an hour." She stated before looking back at Jim and Tim, "Can I trust you two enough for me to leave you alone so I can go meet your father for our trip?"

Mister and Misses Possible did go on long trips a lot to different conferences of their different fields. They couldn't send them to Grandma Possible in Florida, because their trips were only for a few days, which is why they got Old Lady Granger.

Jim and Tim looked at each other instantly and then back at their mother. Just like synchronized swimmers, they brought their hands together and up against their chests. Their eyes looked towards the ceiling in their angelic pose half expecting halos to pop-up over their heads.

"Mother dearest." Tim stated lovingly keeping the mock angelic pose, "We assure you."

"No harm shall come to our humble abode." Jim finished as he went over to the coat hanger and handed Misses Possible her jacket as she headed to the front door.

Of course, Misses Possible was leery about leaving Jim and Tim alone, especially when they were reassuring her like that. But what choice did she have? She couldn't stay, there was so much and so many that needed her help elsewhere. She took the jacket from Jim's hands and opened the front door while Tim made another reassurance to her as he handed her scarf.

"We will be perfect polite children to Miss Granger." Tim smiled

Misses Possible was still wondering if it was right to leave her boys along like that. Still, she was needed elsewhere, and she walked out the door as her boys waved good-bye to her.

"Bye!" They chimed in unison, "Be careful. We love you."

She turned and came back to them.

"Whatever you two are up do…don't…" She scolded but then looked at their adorable twin faces, "I'll trust you two to behave, ok?" Misses Possible bent down and kissed Jim and Tim on the forehead, wishing that she could take the two of them with her, but knew that she couldn't. She went down the walkway to her car, before giving the boys one last glance, "Bye boys! Love you too! And please…please don't get into trouble."

She got into her car, looking at Jim and Tim giving her one last wave before going back into the house. Misses Possible then drove out of her driveway and headed back into Middleton. As she left, her suspicions were coming true as Jim and Tim were relaxing and waiting for the right moment.

They heard the engine start and fade away into the distance.

"One Mississippi…" Jim counted

"Two Mississippi…" Tim continued

"Three Mississippi…"

"Four Mississippi…"

"Five Mississippi…"

The two of them looked at each other with mischievous smiles, "Coast is clear!"

"So what are we going to do?" Tim asked his brother cheerfully as he rubbed his hands together.

"A friend of mine told me about the old Gemini House down the street." Jim told his brother as if the was building him up for a dare, "He said it was haunted."

"Hoo-sha!" Tim rejoiced, "Let's check it out! We'll be back long before Old Lady Granger shows up!"

"Let's go!" Jim cheered

"Race you!" Tim cried out before the two of them dashed out the door.

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Meanwhile, back in the real world, beneath the surface, wastes, and ruins of the old human world, within the sewer tunnels of the super cities, a hover ship; The Mad Dog was taking its perch upon the edge of one of the tunnels. It sat there like a bird in its nest protecting itself from the outside world. While inside, there were plans being made.

"Mind telling us why you pulled us out early?" Mister "Napster" Possible asked as he and his wife Misses "Kazaa" Possible walked onto the bridge of the Mad Dog where they met the rest of the Mad Dog crew. There was the captain, Steve "Kid" Barkin, Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller, Brick "Tater Salad" Flagg, and the ship's operator Sparks.

"Word from Command." Steve "Kid" Barkin stated as he turned around in the pilot's seat to face his crew and give them the news. After all, they had left Zion in a damn big hurry and had not been told at all why they needed to leave. Even though the crew were used to following orders, this one was a little unusual to say the least, "Neo Zion sent us these scans. Tres, show them."

Steve "Kid" Barkin looked at his most loyal crewmember, Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller, sitting in the co-pilot's seat as if she was day dreaming like she did in all the times that she was in his class in the Matrix.

"Rockwaller! Pay attention!" Barkin shouted

Bonnie jumped slightly as Barkin shouted at her hearing a slight echo in her ears. She came back to reality from the daydream that she was in, immediately went to the controls, and brought up the scans that Barkin was talking about.

All the while apologizing, "Sorry, captain."

A second later, a map came up from the small imaging projector that sat upon the dashboard between the pilot's and co-pilot's seat. It was a small, three-dimensional, rotating map of a city highlighted by blue lines with a small, red blob firmly ensconced within.

"That large red spot there is a large patch of electrical signals in the Machine City, Zero One Two." Barkin had briefed his crew and pointed to the red blob within the map.

"Then what's that over there?" Napster Possible asked, pointing to the red dot within the map of Zero One Two.

"That's what we've been sent to find out." Barkin answered, "We've been asked to maintain radio silence until we get there. It's about a week's flight and some surface travel."

"A week?" Kazaa Possible asked, sounding disappointed that it couldn't be less.

"Kimmie Cub's birthday is coming up." Napster pointed out

"Don't worry, Napster." Barkin smirked, "I'm sure Stoppable…I mean Neo, will make it a nice, looooooong, **enjoyable** evening for her."

"I didn't need to hear that." Mr. Possible said as he glared at his captain, unnerved that he had heard such a thing about his daughter.

Though there was one who liked the sound of the idea even less, and that was Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller. She still agonized and blamed herself about that break-up with Ron six months back. Though she never really told the true reason why she was still thinking about it to anyone, but the thought about it made her feel sick.

"I'm not feeling well." She said as she stood up, letting the bangs of her brown hair come over her bluish eyes as she headed out the door of the bridge, "I'll be in my quarters, unless you need me here captain."

Bonnie didn't even wait for permission to be dismissed. Then again, the way that Bonnie looked when she left didn't exactly raise questions in anyone's minds about any of it. So, she simply slipped past Sparks, and headed back to her room within the Mad Dog.

"What bug crawled up her ass?" Sparks asked as he was recuperating from such a fast maneuver to get out of Bonnie's way.

"I think I have an idea." Mrs. Possible smiled, "I'll go talk to her."

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Far away from the Mad Dog's reconnaissance mission, Kim "Angel" Possible and Ron "Neo" Stoppable were resting up for their time to help those in the Atmospheric Purification Plant. Well, they weren't really resting, per se. The two of them were lounging in bed, the sheets pulled halfway back, and the two of them visibly naked in each other's embrace. Even though Ron wanted to leave, he felt so damned content being there with Kim like that, but when duty calls...

"KP?" Ron asked as he tried to sit up in bed, but was foiled by Kim applying more pressure to his shoulders to hold him down. It was a little like the wrestling programs that Ron would watch but in a more playful, intimate sort of way. Ron tried again, but could feel Kim's hands pushing him down even more; she could sense him wanting to get up and go help, but wanted him to stay. "Kim, we have to get up. We're supposed to be helping you know."

"No!" Kim snapped in a very slow and sexy voice as she snuggled closely into Ron's chest as if he were her personal cuddle-buddy.

"They'll need our help, Kim." Ron said softly trying to sneak out of Kim's grip, "It's not like you to not want to help people."

"People can wait, I'm comfy…" Kim mumbled as she snuggled the top of her head to the nape of Ron's neck. She turned her head and began to kiss his naked chest and running the tips of her fingernails up and down his abs before she slowly crept them towards Ron's groin. As her hand was under the sheets and only an inch away from her goal, there was a great metal creak. Her eyes opened wide as the door to their quarters swung open. She bolted upward to see who was interrupting her intimate moments with her lover and found it to be Josh Mankey.

"Oh, am I interrupting anything?" Josh smirked as Kim curled up into a seated position, pulling the sheets over herself to conceal herself from Josh's eyes that she knew was wandering over her body.

"What do you want, Josh?" Kim snapped holding the blanket to her chest.

"Oh, come off it, KP." Josh smiled in a way that made both Kim and Ron very agitated at him, "It's _no big_. It's not like it's the first time I've seen you naked you know. You weren't bothered by it the last time."

"This isn't before." Kim narrowed her eyes at the boy, keeping in mind that her heart, mind, body, and soul were Ron's and Ron's alone, "You better have a hell of a good reason for barging in like this."

"I do." Josh smiled arrogantly, "I was manning the radio and got a call for you, Ron. Someone named Wade told me to tell you that his mother wants to meet you in Central Park, New York City, and that she wants you to come alone."

"Alright, then." Ron growled at him as he sat up, "Do you mind leaving us alone so we can get dressed?"

"Of course, Ron. My work here is done." Josh nodded as he took a bow almost like an English servant before he stood back up and looked at Ron with a very sinister smile on his face, "Oh, and Ron? Enjoy it while it lasts, you never know when the next piece of eye candy will come around."

As Josh closed the hatch behind him, Ron could feel himself growl like a guard dog giving a warning to a trespasser. He wanted nothing more than to tear the trespasser limb from limb, with all the memories he had of Mankey in his head that wouldn't go away. At least until he felt the soft and warm hand of Kim reach up to his shoulder to hold him back.

"It's not worth it." She whispered to Ron as she wrapped her arms around his waist pressing her naked breasts against his back.

Ron took a deep breath and backed down.

"Well, guess we better get dressed and find Morpheus." Kim said as she let go of Ron and climbed out of bed to find her clothes. As she bent over in her nudity, looking for her clothes and boots on the floor, she didn't see what Ron was doing. At least, until she looked back and saw Ron staring at her ass and exposed cherry while she was bent over, she smiled at her lover while she reached over, picked up his boxer shorts and tossed them at his face while whispering, "Perv."

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Inside the Matrix, Ron "Neo" Stoppable was flying in the clouds over New York City. He looked down from his bird's eye view at the sky scrapers, small buildings, and there in the center of it all. A relatively small patch of green landscape like an oasis in the middle of the steel desert that was the city. With Central Park in his sights, he rocketed his way down to the ground, to the very place that was told to him.

He touched down near a small lake, there sitting a few feet away from the lip of the lake was a green, painted bench with a statue of a business man sitting there with a cell phone to his ear. Standing beside the bench, Ron took a good look around, seeing a nearby gazebo with no one in it, and another few feet behind him, there were statues of a caterpillar smoking a hookah atop of a mushroom with a little girl standing next to him. Ron couldn't help but smile at the statues, thinking how he was just like that little girl six months ago…tumbling down the rabbit hole.

Then he reminded himself that he couldn't stop to look, he was there to see the Oracle. He looked around and that's when something very strange occurred to him. He pulled back the sleeve of his coat and looked at the date.

"Saturday." He said to himself as Rufus wriggled his way out of his pocket and climbed up to his shoulder, "And not a soul in Central Park…_weird._"

"Spooky." Rufus squeaked

"Better call, Link, buddy." Ron said to his naked mole rat as Rufus reached into Ron's pocket to pull out the cell phone. He pressed the 0 button and heard the dial tone go through, before he heard the other end of the line pick up.

"Operator?" Link's voice asked

"Link." Ron spoke, "I'm here, but I'm not seeing anyone. Any sign of the Oracle near by?"

"Negative, Neo." Link replied over the phone, "But something is very weird so keep your eyes open."

"Gotcha." Ron answered back, "I'll keep in touch." He pushed the _end_ button and slipped the phone back in his pocket and continued to look around for people.

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In the real world, at the city of Jericho, the crew of the Neb II were in the Jack Room which also had a connection to the Matrix much like the Jack Room at Neo Zion. Of course Morpheus would have preferred to use the connection on the Neb II, but since the room was there in Jericho it seemed impractical to pass it by. Still there were bigger concerns on everyone's minds at that point after Ron had called them.

"I've got a bad feeling about this, sir." Link voiced his opinion, glancing back at Morpheus, Niobe and Kim who were looking at the coded screens over Link's shoulders.

"Ron can take care of himself." Morpheus stated confidently, but his tone of voice showed that he was just as nervous and concerned as the rest of them. Morpheus had a very good feeling that something was very, very wrong about all this. He knew that in all the meetings that Neo had with the Oracle she was usually there before, expecting him to show up like she always did. It wasn't like her to be late or show up after Neo had arrived.

"Wait…" Link said typing on his keyboards, "Something's definitely coming towards him." He typed faster and faster at his keyboards to find out what it is, but when he found it, every nerve in his body froze at what he saw on the screen. "It…can't…be…"

"Get him out." Morpheus stated firmly, his eyes starting to widen in unspoken panic, "Get him out, _now!_"

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Inside the Matrix, Ron was unaware of the danger that was approaching him, the one that his crewmates had seen on those coded screens in the Jack Room of Jericho. The thing that Ron could not get over was the fact that he was in Central Park on a Saturday, and there was hardly a soul around. It reminded him of a movie he saw a few years back called _28 Days Later_, in which a guy had awakened to London and there was not a single soul anywhere, just him. It felt just like that for Ron, as if he was the last living person inside the Matrix.

"Damn, this is eerie." He said to himself.

As the idea of being the last person alive in the Matrix ran through his head, another wave of chills ran up his back. Not only did it consume his spine, but it began to over take his body. With each passing second, he felt as if he was sinking into icy, cold water. That was when another feeling had begun to overtake him, a feeling that Ron had not felt in months since the days he was on missions with Kim. He felt total and absolute panic.

"Mister Stoppable!" A voice called out from behind him.

Ron turned instantly to see who that voice belonged to, no matter how terrifying it would be; he had to know. He looked to see…an _agent_…though at the same time it wasn't an agent. His senses about the Matrix told him that the code was that of a program or a person, but it resonated with completely raw power. The code was like staring into the sun, a blinding light that concealed the great power within it.

"Finally." The agent smiled in a way that made Ron think of a sick Jack-o-lantern, "We meet face to face!"

"I…" Ron tried to speak with Rufus growling from his shoulder, while Ron was frozen in place by the very presence of this…thing, he stepped away from whatever the thing was that stood before him, "I know you…"

"You should, Mister Stoppable." Smith smiled again at Ron, "I spent the last sixteen years of your life in your _head._ But as you can see, here I am…once again..._free_."

Ron took his fighting stance in fear of what this thing was that stood before him.

Smith held up his hands defensively as if he was surrendering, "I'm not here to fight; I only want to talk to you, Mister Stoppable."

"Talk?" Ron asked, slightly lowering his guard, "What about?"

Smith lowered his hands, "Oh, to just catch up a bit, that's all…and to make a proposal to you."

"Sorry, dude." Ron smirked at the agent, hiding his fear of him, "I don't swing that way, and I already have a girlfriend."

Agent Smith laughed, "Your humor amuses me. Much better then Mister Anderson, he was a good fighter but… stiff as a board when it came to humor…and speaking of which…how are things going with you and KP?"

"We're good." Ron stated quickly, not taking his eyes off of this person and hoping that he would change the subject, because it really wasn't any of his damned business.

"Are you really?" Smith questioned quirking an eyebrow, "Tell me…Mister Stoppable…are all your matters in order?"

"What?" Ron asked, coming down from his attack stance.

"Mister Stoppable…" Smith explained, "I have been around for quite some time now. I have seen six come and I have seen six go, though the last caused more than just a little trouble. So what is it now for you, Mister Stoppable? Around three weeks?"

Ron didn't say anything in response to this. His glace only went to the concrete ground; he wished that he could get out of there so that he wouldn't have to listen to that subject.

"What if I told you that there was a way?" Smith asked smiling broadly as Ron's eyes looked back at Smith from behind his mirror lens sunglasses, "There is a way, Mister Stoppable…but it all depends on you and you alone…"

Ron was no longer in his fighting stance; he was only standing on his feet with his hands at his sides and his naked mole rat, Rufus, growling like a dog at Smith. The odd stand off was broken when the cell phone in Ron's pocket began to ring, though Ron didn't reach for it the moment it rung, he simply held his hands at his sides.

"You can either answer the phone and follow Link's instructions to an exit," Smith played out the options for Ron, "Or…you can come with me and hear me out. I will not lie, but I will be disappointed if you turn down my offer, however, I will hold no grudges and will let you return to your happy little fantasy life with Kim."

Ron glanced down at his pocket from behind his sunglasses and then back to Smith.

"What's it going to be, Mister Stoppable?" Smith asked, "You now have the power to step out of Kim's shadow, but you must take the first step or you will never see the sun."

Ron reached into his pocket and pulled out the still ringing cell phone. He glanced at it for a half a second before his trembling thumb reached up, out and pressed the power off button. The ringing was silenced and he slipped the phone back into his pocket while Rufus was squeaking loudly in his ear.

"I'm listening." Ron said

"Excellent, Mister Stoppable." Smith smiled once again like a psychotic jack-o-lantern, "Now, if you would come with me, please? We'll go someplace private to talk."

As Smith led Ron out of Central Park, Rufus was chirping into Ron's ear.

"Quiet, Rufus." Ron whispered, "I have to know."

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"He turned off his phone…" Link whispered in disbelief

"Where is he now?" Morpheus asked leaning over Link's shoulders, worry just dripping over the words that he spoke like syrup over pancakes.

"I don't know." Link sighed quickly as his fingers galloped over the keys like the feet of sprinters in an Olympic race, "Smith…or whatever he is, he's somehow blocking our tracking signal."

"Looks like he's on his own then." Morpheus sighed as he stood back up looking at the sleeping Ron in his Jack Chair, "Be very careful, Ron."

Kim looking at Morpheus and the rest of the Neb II crew, she somehow felt left out because it seemed that everyone there knew what was going on except her. She had no clue who this…Smith was…but she was determined to find out. It was that Blue Fox trait that she had; she couldn't stand being left in the dark about anything.

"Who is that guy?" Kim asked, both unnerved by the mutual nervousness of the Neb II crew as well as frustrated about not knowing what was going on.

"Kimberly." Morpheus said as he came over to Kim, placing a hand on her shoulder as if he was about to deliver the most terrible news in the history of the world, "Do you remember how I spoke of Neo, the One before Ron, how he died to save people trapped in the Matrix and end the war?"

"Yes…" Kim gulped, afraid to even hear or think about the answer that was coming, so much so that she could feel the twisting and turning of her stomach.

"The demon that Ron is with right now…" Morpheus spoke and Kim's heart began to sink to her ankles at hearing the rest, "Is the very demon that Neo died fighting against."

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Agent Smith and Ron "Neo" Stoppable had traveled in Smith's black sedan from Central Park all the way to downtown Manhattan. There they went into one of the sky scrapers to a private dinning restaurant. At first, Ron was expecting a restaurant like the Merovingian's, but it was a lot classier, with a Harp player, piano player, and traditional suits and ties were required dining. Smith led Ron to one of the tables near the window that looked out at the city.

"Have a seat, Mister Stoppable." Smith offered and Ron slowly accepted, slipping into the very comfortable dinning chair. Ron sat nervously in his chair, his heart racing in his chest, it's beating heard in his ears while Smith sat across from him, interlocking his fingers as he sat his elbows on the chairs arm supports. "I know what you're thinking Mister Stoppable. I know you…I know how you think…and what you think about…I know your every thought…every dream…every nightmare….your every fantasy…and your every desire…now I must ask you a very important question…one that I had once asked Mister Anderson. Why? Why do you keep fighting?"

"I…um…" Ron started, trying to dig into his own mind and heart for answers to that question, "I guess I fight to live. I fight to protect others, like Kim."

"Ah yes, KP." Smith smiled as he said that name, "You'd follow her to hell if you had to. And in fact that has happened, has it not? I do in fact remember your initial reaction to _the real world_." Smith shook his head slightly, "You say you fight to live, yet you know if you keep fighting you will die in three weeks. So I must ask you…is it _really_ worth fighting for?"

"What do you mean?" Ron asked, rather confused about Smith's question

"The people in Zion," Smith began his explanation, "And other _real _cities respect you for your power. For you being _The One_, but that's about it. As for those inside the Matrix, you're still just Kim Possible's nameless, bumbling, and goofy sidekick. And you honestly believe Kim's worth fighting for?"

"I know she's worth fighting for." Ron stated, very sure of himself, especially with the six months that he had spent with Kim. All those happy and intimate times he had with her, more than any other woman, "I love her and she feels the same about me."

"Does she really?" Smith asked rather sarcastically as he leaned over the table to look at Ron from behind his sunglasses, "Do you think she really _knows_ what love is?"

"I…" Ron started, but quickly lost the words as if they were droplets of water that quickly leaked out of his hands.

"Let's look at her history a bit, shall we?" Smith nodded, "There was the foreign exchange student that you traded places with for that week, Hirotaka. There was the football star, Brick Flagg and the majority of the team, Senor Senior Junior, and _how_ can you forget, _Josh __Mankey_? The boy that took Kim's virginity, how could you possibly forget? DO you remember? You were planning to surprise Kim at her sixteenth birthday with a cake you made yourself? You must have spent all day trying to make the cake…_perfect_…so that each bite would tell how much you cared about her.

"She never would have guessed you were in her closet that night while she screwed the _Alpha __Hottie__ of Middleton High_ and could hear every _gasp, sign, moan, and calling Josh's name…would she?_ Probably still think that every time you're with her now…right?"

Ron just looked down at his plate, secretly thanking God that he still had his sunglasses on or Smith would have seen the tears welting up in Ron's eyes. He remembered that night of Kim's sixteenth birthday as if it happened yesterday. He remembered how he stayed in that closet all through the hours that Kim and Josh made love, while Ron sat in the closet trying to stay quiet so he wouldn't get caught, while the tears dropped onto the frosting of his special cake. Until the late hours of the night when Josh and Kim were asleep, he got out, set the cake on the kitchen table and went home, the evening scarring his heart.

"And have you ever thought about it, I mean _really_ thought about it, Mister Stoppable?" Smith asked demanding an answer from Ron, "She drew a line. You could never be more than her best friend. Sure she never said it, but she certainly treated you like it, didn't she? Do you remember the times when the two of you were alone? She called you her _best friend,_ but how many times did you hear her talking with guys or other friends about you, and how you were lucky to be called her friend? The majority of the time you were the guy she hung out with sometimes."  
Smith had paused to let the information sink into Ron; he could tell that all of this was starting to come down on Ron's shoulders like some kind of cartoon, sixteen ton weight that was dropped on his head.

Then he started again.

"She couldn't be in a relationship with you." Smith stated, "You were _too low on the totem pole_. She could only love someone popular, someone strong, and someone powerful and then, low and behold; you became The One and she's all over you!"

Ron stared at the bleak whiteness of the plate in front of him, taking all of the facts in. As much as he didn't like the sound of it, it all had made a very creepy and heart-breaking sense.

"And when was the last time that she actually told you that she loved you?" Smith asked, "I mean, told you seriously…not flirting."

Ron said nothing.

"You know what they say, right?" Smith asked, "A girl most of the time falls for the one who takes her virginity. Are you sure she's worth fighting and dying for if she will only run back to Josh after your death in three weeks?"

Ron didn't respond.

"All I am asking is for you to decide if you should fight or not." Smith gave his proposal, "Do you really want to be a sacrificial lamb for a humanity that has no real respect for the _real Ronald Stoppable?_"

Ron still did not say a word. Not even when Smith stood up from the table and looked down on the one man who was once though to be a savior to all humanity. He was reduced; he was just the frightened, scared, and confused little boy who had just awakened once again to reality.

"I don't expect you to answer right away." Smith ended his proposal, "Meet me back in Central Park near those Alice in Wonderland statues in ten days. Do what you know is best…not what KP thinks is best." He walked over and placed a hand on Ron's shoulder, "Good-bye…Mister Stoppable."

Ron didn't watch Smith leave the restaurant; all Ron was left with was his shattered heart and his head spinning with the facts of what Agent Smith had told him. How could he face Kim again? Especially with the past brought up like that? How?

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Ron gasped as he had awakened back to reality, back to the Jack Room of Jericho and to the chair that he was lying in. He looked up at the fluorescent lights that were stinging his eyes so much that he covered them with his forearm as he felt someone pull the jack from the back of his head. As the jack was placed back in its rightful place, Ron heard a cry that he was both glad to hear and was dreading at the same time.

"Ron!" Kim cried out as she dashed over to the jack chair. She threw her arms around Ron, her face buried into his chest, and her voice trembling, "I was so worried about you."

With Kim's arms around him, Ron felt very weird about the whole thing. He suddenly felt very dirty being touched by Kim. He reached over and pulled Kim's arms away from him as he got out of the Jack Chair. Without even saying a word, he headed to the door of Jericho's Jack Room, and as he headed out, he made his statement to Morpheus.

"Captain" He said walking to the door, "I'm going to stay on the Neb Two tonight…_alone_." He emphasized the word 'alone' as if not-so-secretly telling Kim not to follow him.

When Ron left Kim's side, he gave her a look that sent chills all the way through her body. It was as if Ron wasn't the same person anymore, he wasn't that loving, carefree man that Kim had fallen in love with all those months ago when she had died and he brought her back to life again.

"What did he do, Ron?" Morpheus asked, his voice demanding an answer from Ron

Ron stopped at the door of the Jack Room, "He just opened my eyes to a few things that I never really gave a lot of thought to." He explained to Morpheus

"Ronald." Morpheus said trying to tell Ron to listen to him, "Smith is pure evil; he can't be trusted."

"I know." Ron signed annoyed by Morpheus' preaching, "But what he said made sense, and I really oughta give what he told me some thought…anyway, I'm not feeling so great right now, so I'll rest on the Neb Two. Call me if anyone needs help."

Ron walked out the door of the Jericho Jack Room while the rest of the Neb II crew that were left behind were shocked and stunned. They had guessed that Smith had never corrupted Ron through his infections like he did with so many others within the Matrix, but at the same time they wondered. Ron was just so very different in coming out of the Matrix, so different that it scared so many of them, not on the bigger level, but because he was their friend.

Kim on the other hand wasn't going to take this lightly. She walked out the door of the Jack Room and followed Ron into the hallway back to the elevator at the end of the hall. All the while she was calling to him.

"Ron, please talk to me!" she called to him, the tears starting to crack her voice, "Tell me what he said, _please!_ Have I done something, Ron, or said something? _Please tell me, please!_" She begged of her love as he came to the door of the elevator, pushing the down button, waiting for the elevator car to come quickly.

Kim had caught up.

"Ron!" She cried, "_Please, talk to me! I love you!_"

The doors of the elevator opened, and Ron took a deep breath. He turned back to look at Kim who was crying for him, shedding tears for the one that she loved. The gaze in his eyes was filled with a strange, cold, hatred coupled with an intense sorrow that made them look like he was going to weep just like Kim.

"Do you?" Ron asked as a small tear ran down his cheek before he turned his back on Kim, walked into the elevator, pressed the down button, and never looked back as the doors closed.

While the elevator went down to the docking garage, Kim fell to her knees.

"Ron…" She cried as the tears slid down her face and pooled on the dingy black floor beneath her, "_Ron…_"

To be continued…


	11. Upgraded Chapter 3

**The ****Kimmatrix****: Matrix Upgraded**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and ****Turles**

**Chapter 3: Breaking Point**

"_A man loses his sense of direction after four drinks. A woman loses hers after four kisses."_

- H.L. Mencken

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Kim sniffled as she laid in her and Ron's bed in their temporary apartment in Jericho. She had been tossing and turning for hours, but it had felt like an absolute eternity to her. She glanced up at the clock that displayed time in military style. It had told Kim that it was 0345, with as little time that had passed in her eternity of misery Kim felt as if the clock was laughing at her, taunting her with minutes that went by like hours. Her heart ached when she thought about Ron again, and the next wave of tears came over her like an ocean that was drowning her in its depths of misery. It was the first time in six months that she slept without Ron to curl up next to, never before in her entire life had she felt so alone…or so empty, and it didn't feel right at all.

"Why, Ron?" Kim cried, her tears burning across her face and soaking into her pillow as she tossed and turned even more, the sadness, the loneliness, and the misery drowning her. She rolled onto her side, closing her eyes, and yet her tears still managed to squeeze out and roll down her raw face and into her pillow. "Why?" She asked again, her heart begging for some kind of answer that could explain Ron's behavior.

"Doubt he'd hear you." A familiar voice spoke to Kim.

Kim quickly sat up, her heart jumping to racing speed as she looked to see who was in the room with her. Sitting at the edge of the bed was a young woman that Kim barely recognized. Yet, the dress she had on, she did recognize it was that pair of loose white pants and sash that covered the young woman's breasts. It was the very same dress that Kim had worn during that celebration in Neo Zion nearly six months ago. She remembered how Niobe had told her that it was belonged to a friend of hers that had passed away. Looking at that young woman, she wondered if that was the person that Niobe was talking about. At that point, Kim remembered that woman she had spoken to around the time that Ron was captured by Drakken for use in that Code Copier of the Merovingian's.

"Wanna talk?" She asked sympathetically.

Kim felt as ease with that woman, as if they were connected to one another on some indefinable level. Yet, when Kim sat next to her, she could almost swear that this woman looked like Bonnie Rockwaller, but Kim dismissed the notion. Her reasoning being, how could anyone resembling Bonnie be so kind?

Sitting next to her, Kim still couldn't do anything but cry. The young woman wrapped her arms around her and allowed Kim to cry into her chest. It was like what Kim's mother used to do when she was younger, what all mothers could instinctively do for their children when they were in the throes of depression.

"I don't…" Kim cried as she tried to speak through her tears and sniffling, "…don't understand…w-what happened…we were great…then he…he spoke to…him…and….and…came back a different person."

In that woman's arms, Kim felt the lady's hand rubbing the back of her head just like a mother trying to calm her child. While Kim wrapped her arms around her, she hoped to fill that emotional void that was made when Ron left her.

"He just has demons to work out," The young woman advised, "Do you remember what I told you, Kim? You have to _let go _and _have faith in him._"

"I know!" Kim wept even harder into the young woman's sash, "I know…but…I...I just wish…I could talk to him." She dried her tears as she thought more about it, and an idea started to form in her head. She wiped her nose with her hand and looked at the young woman, "Maybe I could talk some sense into him." He voice then began determined, "I'll corner him in the morning and I'll talk to him or I'll beat whatever is wrong out of him!"

"I don't know if that's such a smart move, sweetheart." The young woman stated, smiling sympathetically at Kim.

"I don't care!" Kim stated, her old self Blue Fox traits resurfacing once again, "I have to know what's wrong!"

She made that last declaration before she found herself lying down on her bed. She opened her eyes and looked around and then back at the clock that read 0734. It then occurred to her that she did fall asleep despite all her tossing, turning, and weeping.

"Stupid dreams…" She signed before curling back up to her pillow.

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Kim "Angel" Possible had hit the ground in a hard thud. The battle she had was too terrible to even describe. She couldn't make any victories in it her own. There were only casualties, her tight leather clothes were cut and torn nearly all over her body so much that it was a wonder that it still stayed on her body. Beneath each cut in the garments, there was the cut into the flesh where blood ran freely from her cuts and gashes. She looked out with the one good eye she had left since the other was closed shut from a black eye. She tried to get up, but she had lost so much blood that she could barely get onto her knees.

"What's the matter, KP?" A very sinister voice taunted Kim as he came closer. Kim looked up at a man in an Agent's suit, tie, and sunglasses, yet he had no earpiece. "I thought you could do _anything._"

Kim was about to answer, but she was stopped when the Agent quickly reached down for the material of her leather vest. With a force that Kim had never seen in any human being, the Agent picked her up off of the ground. She watched his face in terror as he held her there. It felt as if the Agent wanted to study her for at least a moment, as if she were a scab that was picked off a hidden place and wanted to see it before it was thrown away.

"Why he loves you I'll never know." The Agent sneered at Kim as if she were a bug that was about to be squashed. She watched in further horror as copies of the Agent began to pour into the room, all of them gathering around the one Agent who had Kim Possible in his grasp. They watched like a crowd at the Roman Coliseum waiting for a condemned prisoner to be executed as the one Agent looked at Kim from behind his sunglasses.

"You're pathetic," he stated, grinning sinisterly at her, "You think you are this great hero because you take down some rejects from the local carnival. You know what, though? You're nothing! Absolutely nothing! I mean, look at you now, KP! Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the Great Kim Possible, _she can do anything!_ Look at your bloody body trembling in fright, your green eyes wide with terror, and your lips trembling in fear! You're no hero, just a scared little girl who is waiting for _the One_ to come and save her! But you know what? After I brought him to realize how you've _really_ treated him, I doubt he'll ever be there to hold you in the spotlight again!"

"You don't…" Kim choked, as she spat blood from her lips, "you don't know anything about Ron!" She said her last statement as she gathered up her blood and saliva and spat in the Agent's face. It landed right on the lens of the Agent's sunglasses and Kim felt victorious for the first time in this: her darkest of hours.

"You'd be surprised Kimmie." The Agent stated, laughing darkly as he reached to pull off his soiled sunglasses. "Has he ever told you about his experience in your closet?" He asked as he lowered Kim down and brought his fingertips directly over her sternum as if he was about to reach in and pull her heart out, "I'd tell you to ask him, but…you're fixing to be a little occupied."

Kim didn't have time to ask what he meant, all she could do was let out a sharp and high scream as Smith's fingers plunged into her chest. From the wounds came black fluid that oozed its way down Kim's body as well as around her face. She looked out with her one good eye as a tear slid down her face, while her lips uttered one name before the fluid engulfed her:

"Ron…"

"Kim!" Ron screamed as he sat back up on his bed on the Neb II. He looked around hoping to find Kim when the memories of what had happened instantly came back to him. Secretly, he had hoped Kim was there beside him to reassure him that everything would be alright. Instead, he had to do it himself, "Just a dream…"He panted "Just a dream…"

He laid back done upon his bed, feeling a huge void in both the bed and his heart. He took a deep breath as he wrapped his arms around the pillow. He wanted nothing more than to dash back up to the apartment he had with Kim and dive into her arms apologizing for everything, and begging her for her forgiveness. To be back there in her arms and the warmth of her body instead of the cold emptiness that surrounded him. Still, there was so much that needed to be sorted out first, but he did know that he had to face Kim sometime. He shook his head at the thought because the thought of Kim only loving him for his abilities paralyzed him.

"Wonder if Neo ever had days like this…" He sighed before trying to get back to sleep.

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Inside the Matrix…

"Wahoo!" Tim hollered as he leapt off the of the windowsill edge inside the abandoned Gemini house. He didn't land on the ground though; his speed through the air seemed to slow down as if gravity was losing its effect on him. He spun like a diver pulling tricks in mid-air, but Tim did it as he worked his way over the old and decaying dining room table. He even managed to do one mid-air somersault before he landed on his feet on the other side of the table.

"This is so cool!" Jim chirped as he too made his leap off of the windowsill, but, instead of the acrobatics of his brother, he made backstrokes through the air as if he was swimming through a pool.

"Shouldn't we head back home, Tim?" Jim asked as he landed on the other side of the dining room table.

"Maybe." Tim nodded, "But let's look around a little more first; this is just too cool to waste to go back to Old Lady Granger."

"Hoo-sha." Jim went along with his brother.

The two of them went further on into the house, while in the shadows of the dining room were two figures. Figures of men, but at the same time they weren't men at all. They were transparent, at least only transparent enough to see through them. While their basic shapes could still be seen, they came out of the shadows, floating with no legs beneath them, holes in their heads where the eyes would be but only sockets remained, and their hair flailing around like the snakes on a gorgon's head. The two…_ghosts…_looked at one another, their mouths spread wide to show their cone-shaped teeth as they floated along through the dining room, passing through the table as if it wasn't there and through the wall, following Jim and Tim as they explored the house.

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Meanwhile, in the real world, at the city of Jericho, Kim walked proudly through the hallways of Jericho to Air Filtering Station Zero-Four. She was filled to the brim with determination that she would find out the answers to her questions, no matter what the cost. Of course, Kim knew that there was much at stake, but that didn't matter to her, she would get the answers. It was either that or Ron would be spending a lot of time in sick bay the next few days. Each step she took was, to her, a milestone to reach her goal, like all those times she fought villains and when she would be getting closer to foiling their plans. Except then she knew she could do it, this…this was different.

She turned the corner and found the sign on the door that read _Air Filtering Station Zero-Four_. She stepped into the station, which was a very circular room with rods (The air filters) sticking out at least a few feet from the wall, which made the room feel very creepy. It felt as if one misstep could impale a person on one of those rods, even though they were flat ended. She looked around seeing members of the Neb II pulling out the rods from the wall and replacing them. There was Morpheus, Niobe, Ghost, Link, and, of course, Ron.

"Target Locked." Kim thought to herself as she smirked and went over to Ron who was just pulling out a rod from the wall.

"Ron." Kim asked as she stood behind him, "Do you have a minute."

Ron didn't even turn to look at Kim, "As you can see, Kimberly, I'm just a tad busy." He said, his voice sounding very cold and unfeeling, "Can it wait 'til later?" He asked as he picked up a new air filter rod that he was about to insert into the wall before Kim reached over placed her hand on it and gently shoved it downward as if telling Ron to stop what he was doing.

"No, Ronald." She replied as if there was no negotiation about what she wanted, "No, it can't wait."

On the other side of the Air Filtering Station the members of the Neb II began to gather in one place as if they were frightened children huddling themselves from their parents fighting. In reality, they were just giving Kim and Ron space to work their problems out. Though Link was the most vocal about this as he whispered to anyone within listening distance. "Oh shit…" He gulped, "Real names. The shit hath hitteth the fan…eth."

"Look." Kim started trying to be kind once again but still firm with Ron, "I just want to know what's wrong, that's all. I know that Smith guy told you something completely off the wall and as usual you bought into it, hook, line, and sinker. So do you mind telling me what he said so that I can prove him wrong?"

"Well, actually, KP, you're off to a good start of proving him right." Ron sighed as he set down the air filter rod and turned to walk away. He was only a few steps away from her before Kim dashed over in front of him and slammed her palm into his chest, stopping him dead in his tracks."

"No, Ron." Kim stated, holding Ron at that distance, "I'm not leaving 'til you tell me what he said and exactly what you meant by that."

"You can't save me this time, Kim; this is my fight." Ron stated, looking directly into Kim's emerald eyes, while his own were filled with years of torment, sorrow, pain, and misery that were unleashed like a rabid animal that had been poked and prodded.

"Your fights are my fights." Kim stated defiantly at Ron, "Isn't that what best friends and partners are for?"

Ron began to laugh as if he had heard the greatest joke of his young life.

"What's so funny, Ron?" Kim demanded as her fingers buried themselves into his shirt and grabbed it.

"So it's partners now huh?" Ron chuckled, coming down from his great laugh until his voice turned dark and serious, "Funny…to Monique, Tara, Bonnie, _Josh_, and who-the-hell-ever else, I was just your _sidekick_."

Kim's grip on Ron's shirt loosened a little, "What?" She asked, very puzzled by Ron's statement, "I…I don't understand…"

"Have you ever treated me as your partner or as your best friend around your friends, Kim?" Ron asked with the hatred and bitterness seething through every word that he spoke. Kim's grip on his shirt had let go as she saw all the anger and sorrow in Ron's brown eyes. Ron even took a step towards Kim, while she took a step back, becoming frightened by what she saw. "I was good enough when everyone else was _busy_, but whenever Monique or that hottie _Josh_ was available, it was '_see you later, Ron. I'll call you.'_ When I wanted to be the Mascot, you didn't believe in me, you just went along with what the rest of the squad thought! And let's not forget that one Halloween! Do you remember that, Kim? _Do you!_ You _lied_ to me! You gave me some bullshit story that I should have seen right through, and I had to go off on my own for the first time in my whole life! But I thought; _No, KP would never lie to me!_ Remember that, Kim? I doubt it!"

"Ron…I…." Kim uttered as she felt herself being backed up against the wall between the air filter rods. She felt trapped, no where to go except to face Ron who was only half an arms distance from her. She truly felt afraid because it was her original plan that she would be the one cornering Ron to get the answers to her questions and now turn-about about been played upon her.

Ron stared down at Kim with his milk chocolate eyes, "Oh, and let's not forget the school dance a year ago, remember that one? While you were _trying _to convince yourself to ask _Josh_ out, while I tried every way in the world to get _any_ girl to go with me. Did you notice? _NOT AT ALL!_ Oh! And I'm sure you had a great time with _Monkey_, but did you ever call me, see if I was going with anyone, or _act like you even cared!_ NO, you were having a grand ole time with _Monkey_ while I spent the dance and THE WHOLE FREAKING WEEKEND in the broom closet! Did you ever even concern yourself with where I was that whole time? No, you were too obsessed with _Monkey!"_

Kim gulped, feeling so afraid to even look at Ron in the eyes seeing all that hatred and sorrow that he had in those brown orbs and knowing it was all directed at her. Still she tried to make a response, but then Ron had cut her off again.

"Even when I changed, it still wasn't good enough for you!" He snarled at Kim, "I made myself buff like Brick by using that muscle ring. I became a genius because of that brainwave enhancer. I became rich because of my naco royalties and I was throwing my money around left and right. I even saved the day on numerous occasions _without your help_. Hell, Kim, I even let you change my hair style, but was it good enough for you, ever?"

Kim's mouth felt very dry when Ron brought up all these memories. He was right, he had changed himself so many times, but Kim simply wanted the goofball Ron. She tried to tell herself that she liked Ron just as he was, but if that was the case why did she let him do all that stuff to himself? She knew that Ron was right; that she never thought he was good enough for her no matter what he did.

"No." Ron answered his own question, "It wasn't. You always put me down for it! I could never win with you, you always pushed me down and away as I was, but when I changed to be like one of the guys you _noticed_, you put me down for it until I became my _goofy sidekick self again_! Tell me, Kim. If we were never freed and I never became the One, would you still have noticed me?"

Kim had an answer to that question, "I noticed you before all that!" She shouted back before Ron could cut her off, "I noticed you _long _before any of that!"

"You sure have a real funny way of showing it, Kimberly!" Ron snorted at Kim's statement before he turned his back on her, "It still doesn't change the fact that you had _lied to me!_"

"At least I told you something!" Kim hissed at Ron's back, feeling her own blood beginning to boil with all the faults that Ron was stating against her, "But I have a question for you! What happened with you and Yori?"

"What?" Ron asked turning around to face Kim, his voice showing shock at what he heard.

"You know Yori." Kim stated very sarcastically, narrowing her eyes at Ron with an anger that flared from the thought of the girl in question, "The girl from Japan. The girl you _never told me about!_"

"How did you…" Ron stated, but then he narrowed his gaze at Kim as his mind made the connection of what Kim did, "_You read my mail…_"

Ron remembered the letters that he saved that were from Yori, the one girl that seemed to like him for who he was. At least before all of the things that happened when he was freed from the Matrix. Yori seemed to actually find Ron humorous with his "American Style Jokes" as Yori called it. Ron even remembered how Yori always said that he was a warrior hero at Yamanouchi.

"Yes, I did read those letters." Kim replied, shoving a finger at Ron's chest, "And I'm glad I did. So what then, Ron? Or should I say, _Mr. Pot calling the kettle black? _I _never_ kept you out of _anything!_ I even told you when Josh took me for the first time."

"_YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO TELL ME ABOUT THAT!_" Ron screamed at the top of his lungs at Kim, "_I ALREADY KNEW!_"

"What?" Kim asked, her arm dropping to her side as she felt the shock come over her by this turn of events.

"You really want to know what Smith told me?" Ron asked with his voice very low and over flowing with anger, "You _really_ want to know? I'll tell you. He told me _the truth!_ You're no better than Bonnie! All you wanted was a guy who was strong and powerful! I have no reason to be in this relationship with you, Kimberly Anne Possible! And yet, I don't understand how or why I could love someone as shallow and two-faced like you as much as I do, ok?"

"B…but…" Kim uttered, feeling and damn near hearing her heart break into a thousand pieces, "I thought…."

"Don't!" Ron interrupted bringing his index finger to Kim's lips, "Don't think…don't speak…_don't do anything_. Just let me handle this one fight by myself…_for once!_"

Ron allowed his arm to drop to his side, bringing his finger with it. He gave one last cold look at Kim before he turned around and left the Air Filtering Station. He walked out the door and never looked back at Kim as if he was going far away and didn't want anything to hold him back.

As he left, Kim allowed herself to slide down the wall and sit on the floor with the air filter rods on either side of her. She felt lost and alone, even more so than before, it truly seemed better when she didn't know. It dawned upon her the full and true meaning of the phrase _Ignorance is bliss._ All she could do was sit there and try to gather up the all the pieces of her broken heart.

With Ron gone, there was a deafening silence that came over them, even the crew of the Neb II were shocked and blown away by what they had witnessed.

"Well…" Link whispered as he started to replace the filters once again, "That was interesting."

Yet, as Ron Stoppable left the Air Filtering Station, there was someone there in the corner, hidden by the shadows. As Ron stomped his way down the hallway, the figure stepped out into the light. He smiled with sinister intent, rubbed his hands together greedily, and he saw that that everything was going just as he had planned it.

"Good." Josh "Ares" Mankey reveled in the current turn of events.

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"KP?" Josh asked as he walked into the apartment that was once shared by Kim and Ron, "Kim? You ok?"

Josh came into the apartment, gingerly seeing as how bad the fight was between Kim and Ron. He had seen his fair share of lovers' spats in his life, but what he saw between Kim and Ron was beyond anything he had ever witnessed.

As he came over to the bed where Kim sat curled up into a ball, Kim looked up weakly at her ex. Her eyes red and her face raw and pink from her tears.

"I'm sorry about what happened with Ron." Josh offered his condolences to Kim as if he was expressing sorrow for the death of someone close to Kim.

"Does the whole city know?" Kim asked, turning her glance away from Josh. All the things that Ron had said to her had shattered her heart, but, at the same time, all of it was so true. Kim looked at herself and saw all the things that Ron said to her, that she was shallow, and two-faced, and so many other things; after all, when she was back in the Matrix, she would only buy from Club Banana when she knew the same clothes could be found at places like Smarty Mart for a quarter of the price.

"Isn't being embarrassed by him what caused this whole problem?" Josh asked, sitting down next to Kim, his voice taking on the tone and tenderness of a crisis counselor.

"I've never been embarrassed by Ron." Kim said to Josh with an air of pride.

Josh cocked an eyebrow at Kim's bold statement.

"Much…" Kim corrected herself.

"Yeah." Josh nodded knowingly as he slipped an arm around Kim's neck, "you had some of that coming, but it wasn't all your fault, Kim. It wasn't you who made him think about this so much."

"What?" Kim asked, glancing at Josh and giving no thought to his arm around her neck. After all, it did bring back some good memories that Kim had with Josh. All those times she was with him in the Matrix, especially that one special birthday she had.

"The whole city has heard about Ron's run-in with Agent Smith." Josh explained

"I don't know what to do…" Kim sighed, looked down at the dingy and grimy floor, "Only thing I can think of is to do what the Oracle said and…just…have faith in him."

"Faith?" Josh scoffed, "You know, if you were twelve, that would be cute, but now that you're this age, it's just sad, Kimmie. I met the old bag once; she isn't really worth all the hype that everyone talks about. Face it; Smith isn't really that bad yet. He's no worse then Drakken, or any of the other bozos you took on. I'm sure you can take him down easily without Ron's help."

Kim looked up at Josh who was smiling in that way that Ron used to when he was offering his support to her. Though Kim looked at Josh, wondering what he was implying by what he was saying to her.

"Why don't you go ahead and take him down before he gets powerful like he did the last time." Josh suggested, "I mean…I'm sure you don't want Ron to end up like Neo."

"You're right." Kim agreed, getting out of the curled up position she was in and standing up on her feet with that same determination in her eyes that she had that morning that Ron had been taken away from her, "Maybe if I stop this guy, I'll be able to prove myself to Ron!"

"That's the spirit, Kim!" Josh cheered Kim on as he stood beside her, "I'm sure you will beat him. Come on; let's use the Jack Chamber on the Neb-two."

With that, Kim and Josh were on their way to the Neb II without a single care of the dangers within.

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Inside an old, dilapidated, warehouse office in the industrial part of New York City, a black rotary phone began to ring. From out of the shadows came Kim's hand, which picked up the received and held it to her ear eagerly.

"I'm in, Josh." Kim spoke into the phone, but heard no answer, "Josh?" She asked again, but there was still no response. It was as if the operators' station was empty. Yet when Kim went into the Matrix first, Josh told her that he'd be there. At first she didn't think much about it because her mind was too set upon completing the goal that Josh had suggested to her. She hung up the phone before she reached into her coat and pulled out a small blue hair band to tie her hair into a high ponytail.

She walked out of the warehouse and down to the streets where she found herself to be in a very large and private parking lot with only a small handful of cars taking up the spaces. She looked around and found not a single soul in sight.

"Ok." Kim thought to herself, "The monitors showed me that Smith was somewhere in the vicinity."

Before she could take another step into the parking lot, her answer came.

"Looking for me, KP?" A sinister voice called from directly behind her. It sent Kim into such a state of shock that she just wanted to jump as high as the street lamps, but instead she only spun around into her fighting stance and found him; the man that everyone in Jericho was talking about.

"Agent Smith, I presume?" Kim asked, with a smirk on her face as she glared at the Agent like he was just another one of Doctor Drakken's lackeys.

"That's my name, KP." Smith said as he casually walked toward Kim.

Stepping closer, Kim felt very unnerved by him, as if he was a hurricane and Kim was just starting to feel the breeze before she would be blown away by him. Yet, the thing that frightened Kim the most about Agent Smith was how he used Ron's pet name for her. She could almost swear that it was Ron inside of the Agent's body. Smith stepped ever closer to Kim, while she could feel her body trembling and her mind trying to fight her fear of him.

"I trust everything is well between you and my other side?" Smith asked in such a casual way, like he was asking about the weather. Kim had no idea what Smith meant by his other half, but she didn't care, and in a flash of heat Kim came back to her senses. She came back to the bravery and confidence that she had when she came into the Matrix.

"You confused Ron!" She snapped at the Agent, substituting her fear with anger at this man, "And FYI…only Ron can call me KP."

"I know you for a fact just how easy it is to do that. Don't you, KP?" Smith smiled, seeing how easy it was to confuse his other half, and to pervert and shove Kim's pet name back in her face. He then reached up to the arms of his sunglasses, "And I think technically I am allowed to call you, KP."

Smith pulled off his sunglasses to look at Kim with a set of eyes that made her gasp. Within the aged and sinister features of Agent Smith's face was a pair of brown eyes. The kind that Kim had not gazed into for a single day. They were brown eyes that carried such sadness and anger, but, at the same time, they had kindness and gentleness within them. Those eyes belonged to Ron Stoppable, so Kim's fear was correct. It was Ron trapped inside Agent Smith.

"You know, KP. There's something Ron has wanted to do since the first day at High School." Smith had started taking another step towards Kim who was frozen in place by that pair of chocolate brown eyes that never broke contact with her, "Ron remembers your words by heart, Kim. _I'm a cheerleader, Ron…I…have to sit over here and you stay over there, ok? I'll meet you after class and we'll walk home._"

Kim felt shocked by what her ears had heard. When Smith spoke those words that she said to Ron all those years ago, he had done it in Kim's voice. It was the voice that Kim had back when she was a freshman in high school with braces and had gotten into the cheer squad. The very year that Kim had started her first mission and became a teen hero.

"Do you remember that, Kim?" Smith asked, his voice returning to its normal state and sounding very bitter as if Kim had done these things to him personally. Yet she remembered those eyes instantly and thought that Ron's mind must be in there somewhere beneath the exterior of the agent.

Kim did remember when she became a cheerleader, that when she became part of the squad she had made a silent ascension up the high school caste system. So, being with someone like Ron, who was at the very bottom, was practically out of the question. But, she didn't want to lose her best friend, so she had made that split between her life with Ron and her life as a cheerleader.

Kim was about to respond to the agent's question but she couldn't. She was stopped when she felt an incredible force slamming against her jaw. The force not only knocked Kim off her feet; she actually spun in mid-air as if she were in some kind of amusement park ride that was tossing her around, before she came back down to the asphalt ground. She landed face down, feeling the scrapes in her face, and then found herself spitting up blood, its coppery and salty taste filling her mouth. She could still feel the thumping and throbbing in her face from whatever hit her; it felt as if she had been hit by a Mack Truck. With the pulsing pain in her face, and the saltiness in her mouth, she got back onto her feet as Smith came up behind her.

"_Oh! Did that hurt, KP?_" Smith asked, feigning concern coated with thick sarcasm, showing no pity for the girl. "Ron felt close to what you're feeling now when he found out that there was no rule to where you were both supposed to sit. Do you remember all the times you dragged Ron shopping, Kim? Just so you could have a boy's opinion, so you could find out if Josh or some other jock or popular _jerk _liked what you wore? It felt something like…_this!"_

Smith brought his leg far back and slammed it forward straight into Kim's stomach like a football player kicking the ball as hard as he could. With that, Kim's eyes went wide as the air in her lungs was forced out in one solid burst from the kick. She rolled onto her back, desperately trying to breathe in some air back into her lungs, but instead she coughed violently as blood trickled into her windpipe.

"I…" Kim wheezed, hoping to reach some level of pity with the Ron inside Smith, "…never meant…to hurt…Ron." She continued to cough as she got back onto her knees.

"_Oh! And that's supposed to make it all better now?_" Smith smirked as he looked around and said, "Pick her up."

Kim had enough to time to wonder who he was talking to before two pairs of hands came down, wrapped themselves around Kim's arms, and lifted her up off of the ground. In her blurred sight, she looked around the parking lot to see hundreds of Smiths just pouring in from all around. Until she looked back at the Smith who had his sunglasses off; he was putting them back on and starting to crack his knuckles while he smiled at Kim with his cruel intent.

"Ron will thank me for this." He smirked

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"Morpheus?" Ron called as he knocked on the door of Morpheus and Niobe's guest apartment in Jericho.

"Come in." Morpheus' voice rang out from behind the door.

Ron opened it and stepped into the small guest apartment of Morpheus and Niobe, which was basically the same as everybody else's in Jericho, just a simple bed, bathroom, and a couple of chairs. Ron entered and saw that Morpheus and Niobe were sitting on the bed as if it was their makeshift couch. He approached them with eyes red and puffy and a face that was raw and pink as if he had been crying recently.

"Good afternoon Ronald. Can we help you with something?" Morpheus asked from the makeshift couch.

"Have you seen KP?" Ron asked rather urgently, as if every moment he had counted upon his urgency to find Kim, "I wanted to…apologize for…ya know…going off on her like I did in the Air Filtering Station… I was just stressed from the stuff Smith told me and…Kim…has a way of pushing things…and..."

"We all understand, Ronald." Morpheus said as he got up from the bed and placed a hand on the boy's trembling shoulder, "Do you wish to talk now about what Smith spoke to you about?"

Ron took a deep breath and exhaled softly, "Yes."

Ron sat down on the bed with Morpheus and Niobe. It was as if Ron was telling something that he had been hiding from his parents and wanted to come clean about it. Then again Ron never had this kind of experience with his own parents, yet Morpheus and Niobe seemed to be like parents to both Ron and Kim. Especially during that time that they had just come out of the Matrix and were lost in the real world (or at least Kim was).

Sitting on that bed with his "acting parents", Ron "Neo" Stoppable had spilled everything that he and Smith spoke of. The Oracle's predictions that he would die within a matter of weeks, his relationship with Kim; whether it was truly real or if it was just because Ron was the One, as well as some very painful memories of their past life inside the Matrix itself. Also, the doubt that came over Ron about his life with Kim and his life as the One. He ended with the decision that would have to be made, to join Smith or pursue his present course and face death.

"And what have you decided?" Morpheus asked with a small glint of worry in his voice.

"He tried to make me look solely at Kim's faults." Ron explained, "Tried to make me think that she didn't care about me at all…I _almost_ bought into it too…"

"Almost?" Morpheus asked

"Kim Possible is…" Ron began to list off Kim's different faults on his fingers, "an obsessive, egotistical, manipulative, controlling, over-bearing, retail-crazy, occasionally holier-than-thou, impulsive bitch."

Morpheus and Niobe weren't all that surprised at the list of Kim's faults according to Ron. The two of them had a look as if they were expecting the young man to figure all of that out.

"But you know what?" Ron asked, "That's just who she is, and who she'll always be. And she's also the best friend I've ever had. Whether she first loved me because of my powers or not, I could see it today in her eyes…she _loves_ me for _me_ or else she wouldn't be trying so hard to get me to let her help. I still don't understand why she loves me, and that's one of the reasons I want to find her…but to answer your question…Smith can take his proposal and _shove it up his ass._"

"Ok, Priority One." Morpheus stated, "Finding Kimberly. Have you checked in the Neb?"

"Not yet," Ron answered, "I checked our room, then I came here."

"Let's head over there, then." Morpheus said, standing on his feet as he headed to the door with Ron, but then turned back to his wife, "Coming, Niobe?"

Niobe didn't say a word; she simply nodded, hopped off the bed, and went with Ron and Morpheus.

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It was the longest few minutes that Ron ever had to experience in his life; it was just like having to spend fifteen minutes in a dentist's chair. Time gains the consistency of salt water taffy, continually stretching on and on until it becomes ridiculous. Until, finally, Ron, Niobe, and Morpheus had arrived at the docking garage and headed straight into the Neb II, when they got there they noticed something very odd.

"The ramp is open." Ron whispered to himself before he went up the open ramp. He couldn't wait any longer and called out, "Hey Kim! You in here?"

Morpheus and Niobe followed behind and noticed the very strange situation around the Neb. The ramp was usually closed no matter what. It'd be similar to someone leaving their car door open in the middle of the parking lot. The two of them climbed up the ramp and noticed something else: a sound; a low humming like the almost inaudible sound a TV makes when it's being left on.

"Sounds like the broadcast system is running." Morpheus made his observation to Niobe, "But Link is helping out on the Leviticus…"

Further up into the ship, Ron was dashing around from room to room, trying to find Kim, his heart racing and his skin sweating, and hoping to God that he would find her. He wanted to tell her that he was so sorry for everything he said and did, that he wanted nothing more than to have her back. As he thought about all the things that he would say to Kim, he came into the Jack Chamber; in one of the chairs he could see a body with clothes that resembled Kim's.

"Kim!" Ron shouted as he dashed into the semi-circle of Jack chairs and looked at Kim in hers, but when he found her…he froze.

He looked at Kim's body; it was trembling, her hands gripping tightly onto the arm rests. There were patches of sweat around her armpits, chest, and even droplets of it coming down her face with the bangs of her hair sticking to her forehead like scotch-tape on paper. Ron knew that she was inside the Matrix, but what made his heart stop amidst his rushing was the little line of red traveling down from the corner of her lips.

"Oh no…" Ron uttered

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Kim "Angel" Possible had hit the ground in a hard thud. The battle she had was too terrible to even describe, she couldn't make any victories in it of her own. There were only casualties. Her tight leather clothes were cut and torn nearly all over her body so much that it was a wonder that it still stayed on her body. Beneath each cut in the garments was a cut or scrape or gash into the flesh were blood freely flowed. She looked out with one good eye since the other was closed shut from the swollenness that a black eye brings. She tried to get up, but she had lost so much blood that she could barely get onto her knees.

"What's the matter, KP?" A very sinister voice taunted Kim as he came closer. Kim looked up at a man in an Agent's suit, tie, and sunglasses, yet he had no earpiece. "I thought you could do _anything._"

Kim was about to answer, but she was stopped when the Agent quickly reached down for the material of her leather vest. With a force that Kim had never seen in any human being, the Agent picked her up off of the ground. She watched his face in terror as he held her there. It felt as if the Agent wanted to study her for at least a moment, as if she were a scab that was picked off a hidden place and wanted to see if before it was thrown away.

"Why he loves you, I'll never know." The Agent sneered at Kim as if she were a bug that was about to be squashed. She watched in further horror as copies of the Agent began to pour into the room, all of them gathering around the one Agent who had Kim Possible in his grasp. They watched like a crowd at the Roman Coliseum waiting for a condemned prisoner to be executed as the one Agent looked at Kim from behind his sunglasses.

"You're pathetic," he stated, grinning sinisterly at her, "You think you are this great hero because you take down some rejects from the local carnival. But you know what? You're nothing! Absolutely nothing! I mean, look at you now, KP! Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the Great Kim Possible, _she can do anything!_ Look at your bloody body trembling in fright, your green eyes wide with terror, and your lips trembling in fear! You're no hero, you're just a scared little girl who is waiting for _the One_ to come and save her! But you know what? After I brought him to realize how you've _really_ treated him, I doubt he'll ever be there to hold you in the spotlight again!"

"You don't…" Kim choked, as she spat blood from her lips, "you don't know anything about Ron!" She said her last statement as she gathered up her blood and saliva and spat in the Agent's face. It landed right on the lens of his sunglasses and Kim felt victorious for once in this: her darkest of hours.

"You'd be surprised Kimmie." The Agent stated, laughing darkly as he reached off to pull his soiled sunglasses. "Has he ever told you about his experience in your closet?" He asked as he lowered Kim down and brought his fingertips directly over her sternum as if he was about to reach in and pull her heart out, "I'd tell you to ask him, but…you're fixing to be a little occupied."

Kim didn't have time to ask, all she could do was let out a sharp and high scream as Smith's fingers plunged into her chest. From the wound came black fluid that oozed its way down Kim's body as well as around her face. This time it was no dream, this time no one would wake up, all of it was for real, and Kim could no longer fight it. She looked out with her one good eye as a tear slid down her face and over the black fluid, while her lips uttered one name as the fluid engulfed her:

"Ron…"

To be continued…


	12. Upgraded Chapter 4

**The Kimmatrix: Matrix Upgraded**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and Turles**

**Chapter 4: Work it ****Out**

"_The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing."_

- Blaise Pascal

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"You're pathetic," he stated, grinning sinisterly at her, "You think you are this great hero because you take down some rejects from the local carnival. But you know what? You're nothing! Absolutely nothing! I mean, look at you now, KP! Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the Great Kim Possible, _she can do anything!_ Look at your bloody body trembling in fright, your green eyes wide with terror, and your lips trembling in fear! You're no hero, you're just a scared little girl who is waiting for _the One_ to come and save her! But you know what? After I brought him to realize how you've _really_ treated him, I doubt he'll ever be there to hold you in the spotlight again!"

"You don't…" Kim choked, as she spat blood from her lips, "you don't know anything about Ron!" She said her last statement as she gathered up her blood and saliva and spat in the Agent's face. It landed right on the lens of his sunglasses and Kim felt victorious for once in this: her darkest of hours.

"You'd be surprised Kimmie." The Agent stated while laughing darkly as he reached to pull off his soiled sunglasses. "Has he ever told you about his experience in your closet?" He asked as he lowered Kim down and brought his finger tips directly over her sternum as if he was about to reach in and pull her heart out, "I'd tell you to ask him, but…you're fixing to be a little occupied."

Kim didn't have time to ask, all she could do was let out a sharp and high scream as Smith's fingers plunged into her chest. From the wound came black fluid that oozed its way down Kim's body as well as around her face. She looked out with her one good eye as a tear slid down her face, while her lips uttered one name as the fluid engulfed her:

"Ron…"

Kim closed her eye as the tear ran down her face; the only thought in her mind as the black liquid engulfed her was that she would never see Ron again. Thinking about that, Kim began to regret everything that she had ever done to Ron as she fell into that darkness, as if it were a pit from which she would never return.

Then as quickly as the darkness came, it fled, and she felt herself being pulled out. Even more so she felt something pulling her up by the arms. She opened her eyes and found that she was no longer in the grip of Agent Smith. She felt shocked when she found herself flying over the parking lot to a nearby building where she was laid down upon its sandy roof. She looked up to see who it was that had saved her, but heard his voice first.

"You ok, KP?" She heard Ron's voice ask as she watched him come around so she could see her reflection in his mirror lens sunglasses.

"R…Ron?" Kim coughed weakly. She couldn't help but smile at her liberator; even though such harsh words had been exchanged, she couldn't think of anyone she wanted to see more. She tried to stay awake to tell Ron the most important words that she could think of, but her eyes closed as she fell into unconsciousness.

"It's ok now, KP. I'm going to save the day again." Ron said as he brushed back a few strands of Kim's hair. He stood up, reached into his pocket and pulled out his pet and best, non-human friend, Rufus. The naked mole rat stretched as he yawned, and then looked up at Ron, sensing the concern from him.

"Stay with her, buddy." He instructed to Rufus.

"Got it." Rufus squeaked as his paw came to his face in a small salute before he jumped out of Ron's hand and down to the unconscious Kim.

With Kim in good hands (or paws as the case may be) Ron went to the building's ledge and looked down to the warehouse parking lot where he saw the multitude of Agent Smiths. Every single copy was looking at him with such contempt and hatred, and Ron felt that déjà vu coming over him, that he had done this before, but the memory was much more solid this time. He remembered his last life and his last battle with Smith and how that battle killed his previous self.

From within the crowd of Smiths came one Smith who stood out among the crowd as the Alpha Smith so to speak. He looked up at Ron and called out to him.

"Mister Stoppable!" He shouted to the rooftop, "I see you came early! Have you thought about my offer?"

"Yes!" Ron shouted back down at the lead Smith; he clenched his fists as his own contempt for Agent Smith bubbled to the surface, "I've give it a lot of thought!" He stated as he stepped off the ledge of the building and floated down to the asphalt ground to meet with the rogue Agent.

"I think I have only one real option." Ron said as he stepped forward, taking no offensive stance against the Agent. He came to him as if he was negotiating peace between himself and the program.

"That's right." Smith smiled broadly, reaching his hand out to Ron

"So to put it simply…" Ron started, taking Smith's hand in his own in a friendly handshake. Smith grinned widely as he saw his victory was close at hand, and that's when it went down the tubes. He felt Ron's grip on his hand grow tighter until he looked up at Ron who yanked Smith's arm towards him, bringing the rest of his body up against Ron. Smith looked at Ron from behind his sunglasses and saw that he was grinning with that same level of macabre joy that Smith had had just a few minutes ago. It frightened Smith because it was so much like him and yet so much like Mister Anderson. Ron leaned over and whispered into Smith's ear, "I'm going to have to beat the shit out of you."

Ron then took the agent's arm and brought his body around into Judo throw, slamming it against the concrete. The lead Smith felt his body ache as he tried to get back to his feet, but Ron had other thoughts on his mind. He looked to the crowd of Smith copies who at first had been very confused about what had just transpired between Ron and the lead Smith. Before any of them could even collectively think about what to do next, Ron "Neo" Stoppable had dove right into the crowd. He punched, kicked, stomped, and threw every single Smith that came across his path, or, at least, the ones that were within good reach. All the while, from a distance, it looked as if a bomb had exploded sending the Smiths in every direction. Inside the crowd of Smiths, all of them felt collectively afraid because it was just like their encounter with the original Neo (Mister Anderson), yet, at the same time, it was so different.

Ron brought his hand out to reach for one of the Agents ties, as he grabbed it Ron heard Smith's Question:

"Why Mister Stoppable, why?" He asked as Ron used the tie for leverage to throw the agent across the parking lot, "I am a part of you. How can you betray yourself?"

"What can I say? I'm a sucker for punishment." Ron stated as he punched another agent directly in the face smashing his sunglasses and his nose. In fighting all those Smiths, Ron felt like one of his favorite wrestling heroes, like Steel Toe or Pain King. He even imagined the announcer calling out his name and the masses cheering for him. _One match only, Ron "Neo" Stoppable_ _verses Agent Smith and his clones, a match for the future of humanity, let's get ready to rummmmmmmmbbbbbbbbblllllllllle!_ He even began to do various wrestling moves like choke slams, head butting; he even went so far as to take one of the nearby parking meters and crack it over an Agents' heads.

He did have the power advantage, but Smith had the superior numbers. Even though Ron felt that he was winning, the number of Smiths seemed to multiply, and even with his control of the Matrix, it wasn't enough. He was only one man. That had hit him when one of the Agents had punched him in the chest and sent him flying against the nearby brick wall of the warehouse.

"Give it up, Mister Stoppable." The Agent Smiths said, the phrase echoing amongst the clones.

Ron felt his back, as well as the rest of his body, ache as he tried to get up off the concrete ground. He no longer felt like the wrestling stars that he idolized as a boy, he felt like his old self. The Ron Stoppable that he was six months ago, the one who wasn't as smart, brave or as athletic as Kim Possible, only that time getting up off the concrete, Ron knew that he was on his own. Kim couldn't save him, but Ron remembered that he promised Kim that he wouldn't be excess baggage. He got back to his feet, his body recovering from the impact against the wall. He didn't' bother dusting himself off. He needed a way to win, because he remembered how it happened last time. The last One sacrificed his life to defeat Smith and Ron knew that it was too early to give up.

He took his stance as the Smiths crowded around him. They had him against the wall with no way out and Ron did not want to run, he wanted to fight, _but how?_

"It is inevitable…" The Smiths echoed, "You will join with us…"

Hearing that phrase coming from the Smith's lips, something had occurred to Ron. It was something that was so obvious that he had wondered why he didn't think of such a thing before. The idea being if Smith was a part of him, then weren't his abilities as well? At that point Ron's head was a blank, and he acted purely upon instinct. He looked around for the nearest Agent, seeing the crowd of Smith clones and smiled.

The smile frightened the clones because they were already suspicious about what he was up to.

"If you say so, pal." Ron smiled as his hand dove right for the nearest agent, his fingers buried into his chest as if it was Play-Doh. From the wound in the agent's chest came a reflective liquid just like the kind that would come over someone when Smith took over. Except, this time, it wasn't black, the liquid that began to infect the Smith copy was a bright silver, like mercury.

"_NO!_" The clone screamed trying to break from Ron's grip as the silver fluid covered him from head to toe. It was only a half a moment later that the silver fluid began to shrink and standing in place of the Smith Clone was an exact copy of Ron. The Smith clones were shocked at what they were witnessing, their own powers being used by another.

"Dude…" Ron gazed in awe at what he had done like that very first time that he manipulated the code of the Matrix to fly and even bring Kim back to life.

"Booyah!" The Ron Clone smiled as he performed a small victory dance, which was quickly stopped when the two of them looked at the Smith clones and knowing the work they needed to do.

The original Ron clenched his hands in rage as he thought about how Smith was so close to breaking him and Kim up. As he clenched his fists, he felt a hot, itching, almost burning kind of sensation, sort of like athlete's foot, but it was in his hands. That was when they started to feel very warm like he was holding his hands close to an open fire. He looked down and was even more shocked to find his hands glowing with green flames.

"Shego?" Ron asked aloud as he looked over at his clone.

"Who would've thought?" The Ron clone shrugged as he held up his hands, igniting them with those green flames. He then turned his gaze to the crowd of Smith clones, "Want to try that again?"

"I think so." The original Ron smiled with his glowing fists ready, "Smith…you're goin' down!"

The two Ron's dashed into the awestruck crowd of Smiths. It took a few seconds for them to come to grips with what happened, but it was too late. Ron "Neo" Stoppable and his clone had taken a different approach to the fight, instead of just kicking or punching at the Smith copies, they simply converted them. Using both hands, they infected each Smith to become another Ron, the first two made four, and those six made twelve, and they made twenty-four. By the time that the number of Ron's had reached the low fifties, the Smith's began to fight back, but Ron had already taken both advantages to the fight, he already had the power advantage and had gained the number advantage. Smith couldn't even put up a decent fight anymore since he was outnumbered two-to-one, and severely out-powered as well.

Somewhere in the midst of Ron's and Smith's fighting, the original or rather the prime Smith and Ron were dueling one on one. At least Ron thought he was fighting the original Smith, but looking out amongst the crowd, he saw each one of them was just a citizen of the Matrix trapped inside the codes of Ron Stoppable and Agent Smith. The code of Smith had that sickly green color while Ron's was a bright yellow color as if it was made of light. Looking through the crowd, Ron spotted him, the one amongst the fighting copies of Ron and Smith, which did not have either code encasing him.

With the true Smith in his sight, Ron dashed out over the fighting masses to the original Smith. He closed in upon him and began his one on one duel with the rogue agent, and Smith couldn't even get a single punch at Ron.

"What's the matter Smith?" Ron asked sarcastically of the agent as he continued to slam his fists left and right at him until Ron reached out, grabbed the agent's tie, pulled him towards his face, and whispered, "Wonder what would happen if I assimilate you?"

Smith reached his hands up and snarled at Ron, "_You'll never get the chance!_"

He shoved hard against Ron, and freed himself of the One's grip.

"We'll see…" Ron replied as he smiled devilishly at Smith. He then dashed up to the Agent, his fist cocked and ready to slam. He came up under the agent, delivering a great uppercut that sent him rocketing upward as if he had on a pair of Ron's old blaster briefs. Then the gravity of the Matrix did its job and brought Smith back down to the ground to where he landed in a circle of his copies.

As Smith got back to his feet, Ron came around for the next assault. He came up to the Agent except this time instead of making a punch, Ron had crouched down and made a leg sweep. Smith had it together that time; he dodged Ron's attack, and, seeing his opportunity, Smith made a backwards kick that had hit Ron directly in the jaw, which sent him flying up and onto his back.

Ron staggered back onto his feet, feeling the numbing pain in his jaw. Getting into a crouched position, Ron dashed and performed a spear on Smith, hitting him in the stomach and tackling him to the grimy, asphalt ground. The two of them wrestled like a couple of kids fighting on the playground with all of their copies continuing to fight all around them until Ron reached up and kicked Smith off of him.

Once again Smith went up, came down, and landed on the asphalt surrounded by his copies, which got him back to his feet. He, along with his copies, looked around seeing that they were even more outnumbered than before, it went from being two-to-one to a margin of six-to-one.

The original Smith curled back his lips, baring all his teeth in rage.

"You haven't seen the last of me, Mister Stoppable!" Smith declared to the crowd of Ron copies, "Not by a long shot!" He then turned to what was left of his copies and dictated his order, "Retreat!"

Agent Smith and his clones scrambled out of the warehouse parking lot leaving behind a very proud Ron Stoppable…all of them. Each one looked at each other, feeling the pride of a job well done.

"Boo-yah!" One of the Ron's shouted out, and very soon the word echoed with each copy and flowed outward like a ripple in a pond. There was even a small breakout celebration dance, the kind of dance that Ron would do sometimes when he knew that the situation was definitely well in hand, as if to say _we're bad, you're sad…we're bad, you're sad!_ The celebration amongst Ron and his clones was brought to a grinding halt when they heard a very familiar voice.

"Oh…my…God…" The voice uttered.

The closest of the Ron's turned to see where the voice came from. The other Ron's had quickly picked up upon and turned to the same direction that the first Ron had turned. They had looked to see, standing at the edge of the crowd, Morpheus, Ghost, and Niobe. All three of them had removed their sunglasses to gain a better view of the spectacle that they were witnessing. The Ron clones were silent when they had looked to the three of them, until the first Ron who had discovered them spoke.

"Hi guys…" The first Ron smiled sheepishly as he raised his hand in a stiff wave.

Fractions of a second later the whole crowd of Ron clones repeated the first Ron's reactions. Though the reaction that they gave was like that of a stereo system, coming from all around and then ending in a slight echo with the Rons in the back finishing it off.

It was beyond anything that Morpheus had expected of Ron, in the beginning he had hoped that Ron would simply be like Neo, but looking at the forty-plus Rons, he realized that expectation was the lowest of the low. Then again, Morpheus had to remember that Kim's life was at stake; even Neo exceeded expectations when he had brought Trinity back to life.

"Where's Kim?" Niobe asked, recovering from her shock of seeing the Ron clones as she had slipped her sunglasses back on.

"Right here!" A single voice called from the crowd as they began to split and part like the Red Sea. Stepping out from the crowd of clones was a single Ron who was carrying Kim Possible in his arms. He walked up to meet with Niobe who handed Kim's limp and unconscious body over to her. Niobe took Kim into her arms, set her down on the ground, and saw how bad of shape she was in. Kim's clothes were torn, dusty, dirty, and grimy from being slammed into walls and the ground. Her face caked with dried blood that ran from her lips and the cuts in various spots, with small clean streams caused by her tears.

"Kim." Niobe called as she felt the girl's wrist and neck for a pulse…it was still there no question about it.

Kim stirred slightly, giving a slight groan as she moved her arms and legs. She opened her eyes, or at least the one eye that wasn't swollen shut from bruising. That singular green eye looked up at Niobe. It was filled with relief upon seeing the woman that Kim had come to think of as an older sister. Her cracked and bloodied lips started to move, small puffs of air coming out as she tried to speak.

"Ron…" Kim spoke with a very dry wheeze, "Is... he... al… alright?"

Niobe looked down at Kim, taking in her question and knowing full well what the answer was when she looked up and out over the crowd of Ron Stoppable clones.

"You could say that." Niobe stated to Kim rather slowly wondering how Kim would take in the events that had transpired.

Through blurred vision out of her good eye, Kim saw Niobe looking behind her. She slowly turned her head to see what was there, her head and hair scraping against Niobe's lap. At first, she couldn't see anything until her damaged vision cleared as much as was possible. Her heart was glad to see that Ron was still standing, alive and well, but then she felt confused when she saw someone else who looked exactly like Ron, even had his exact clothing. The confusion only multiplied when Kim saw another Ron, and another, and then another, until it overwhelmed her. In the back of her mind, she tried to reason that there must be something wrong with the Matrix or something was wrong with her vision. That must have been it; she thought slowly, that she was seeing multiples because of the trauma to her head. But the feeling had overwhelmed Kim Possible so much that it had overtaken her; her one, good eye rolled back into her head and she fell back into the darkness of unconsciousness.

"She's out cold again." Niobe reported to Morpheus

Though Morpheus had other issues on his mind, mainly about the situation at hand with Ron, just looking at them, the scenarios of consequences ran through his mind if no solution could be found to rectify it right away. He approached the crowd of Ron's hoping to find a quick solution to this.

"Can you…" Morpheus began, but then ran into another problem: which Ron to address, after rethinking it for a moment, he had to find the original Ron, "Which one of you is the real Ronald?"

The crowd of Ron clones began to look to one another as if not even they could find or know who the original Ron Stoppable was. Though something else happened, as the forty-plus Ron's looked at one another, smiles began to creep across their faces like children with some kind of mischievous intent in mind. From somewhere in the crowd of the Rons came a noise, it was the kind of noise that someone makes by blowing air through tight lips, the very same sound effect one makes for a beat when there's no equipment to do it. With the beat going, the crowd of Ron's began to dance in a synchronized fashion as if their minds were linked together to know what step to take next. They danced in their synchronic pattern as they began to rap together, yes; the crowd of Ron Stoppable's began to do a rap.

_I'm Ron Stoppable_

_Yes, I'm the real Stoppable_

_All you other Ron Stoppables are just imitating_

_So won't the real Stoppable please stand up?_

_Please stand up…_

_Please stand up…_

_Cause I'm Ron Stoppable_

_Yes, I'm the real Stoppable_

_All you other Ron Stoppables are just imitating_

_So won't the real Stoppable please stand up?_

_Please stand up…_

_Please stand up…_

Watching the crowd of Ron Stoppables do their oddly paced dance as they rapped, the feel of the situation became truly bizarre. Niobe and Morpheus had not a single clue of how to respond to such an event. Though Ghost on the other hand was just enamored by what he was witnessing. He remembered seeing the music video, "The Real Slim Shady" made by the rapper Eminem, how in one part he was surrounded by people who looked just like him. Seeing all those Ron's and hearing them rap like that made Ghost think that the situation had made a great leap from scary to plain ridiculous.

"This…this has to be a nightmare." Ghost thought as he widened his eyes at the crowd of rapping and dancing Ron Stoppable's.

"Ok, ok, seriously." One of the Rons said, stepping out of the crowd of clones and bringing an end to the dancing and rapping. He came up to meet the dumbfounded group and offered his solution as he took off his sunglasses. He then looked at Morpheus, Niobe, and Ghost with those chocolate brown eyes and said, "I _think_ I can fix this…"

Ron Stoppable (The original as the group had presumed) took a step back, turned to the crowd of clones, closed his eyes, and began to relax. Ron himself didn't exactly have a clear idea of what to do. Even the process where he used Smith's ability to copy himself just came to him by instinct alone or maybe it was just pure luck, just like all those times that his bumbling had helped Kim save the day. But the problem remained that he had to find a solution to this on his own.

In his mind's eye, Ron could see the Matrix around him, its code flowing over every surface, bright in highlights, and falling into darkness for the shadow. All the while he searched for an answer of how to release the people encased in his code. It felt tense…_he _felt tense…he took a very deep breath and let it out to relax as if he was trying to remember the feeling of barely coming out of a test with a C-minus.

After his last exhale, Ron felt something change around him; he looked ahead, his vision was still that of the code of the Matrix. He could see his code starting to release the people, one strand at a time as if it were the layers of an onion coming off of the core, but to the others it was very different. To the eyes of Morpheus, Niobe, and Ghost, it looked like the Ron clones were glowing. It wasn't an outward glow, more like some kind of halo for the body. It was as if the shell that was Ron was starting to crack on each of the clones, and each crack was allowing light to shine through, a bright, yellow light.

Surprisingly, none of the Ron clones that were cracking displayed any sort of pain. They seemed to accept what was happening, or at least they were anticipating it, until all of the Ron clones looked like glass that had been shattered. That was when they began to break apart, each of the Ron clones crumbling away to reveal the person that was held inside.

Each part falling away like loose icicles until they had hit the ground where they shattered into pieces of yellow code, some pieces were of his face, his arm, or perhaps a hand. It was all falling away to free the people that were once prisoners of Agent Smith and then, by the same token, prisoners of Ron Stoppable. At first the crumbling was slow but then sped up, until, one by one, the people were free.

It was incredible to the eyes of Morpheus when he and his crew were standing at the edge of that parking lot looking at forty people who were lying unconscious upon the asphalt. All of them, men, women, young, and old; it was a miracle if Morpheus were to give the event a name. He looked amongst the still bodies of the hostages to Smith, until he saw Ron "Neo" Stoppable standing in front of them, so it was him, the one who said he had the solution was the original.

Ron looked out amongst the dozens of bodies until his eyes had locked in upon one particular one. It was a woman's body with long, black, and flowing hair that obscured her face from identification. Yet, Ron knew who it was; he looked to her body and saw that green and black design it had, alternating back and forth from left to right. Ron smiled when he made the connection.

"Like I thought," He giggled to himself, "I was Shego…wait…"

He looked down at Shego, giving a little more thought to the actual ramifications of having Shego within him or that Shego was a part of him. The very thought made his skin crawl. It was because of the simple idea that Shego had become Ron.

"Now…that's sick…and wrong!"

Ghost had brought himself out of the shock that he had just been in, going from being blown away by Ron versus Smith's army, to the Ron clones doing their rendition of "The Real Slim Shady" and finishing by the clones release of the people they inhabited. Ghost had put his sunglasses back on and slowly approached Ron who was looking at the people lying on the asphalt parking lot.

"Are they…ok?" Ghost had asked nervously

"They'll be alright." Ron answered as he turned around to face his crewmates, "But I think they're gonna have the hangover from hell when they wake up."

He looked over at Niobe who was kneeling down with the beaten up Kim Possible in her arms. Silently, Ron came over to Niobe, who knew full well what Ron wanted. She picked up Kim in her arms and handed her limp body to Ron knowing that she was all of Ron's reasons for being here and that was all that mattered to him. Slowly, Ron slipped his arms under Kim's body and felt the weight of her body as Niobe slipped out her arms from under Kim completing the transfer.

Ron looked down at Kim, seeing how fragile and helpless she was despite all of her efforts to be the strong woman that she wanted to be. He cradled Kim's unconscious body, his forehead pressed against hers, and he whispered something that only he could hear.

"And I have her." He whispered, "I have Kim back."

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Kim had opened her eyes to such blurry vision, that the interior of the Neb was fuzzy globules of gray and black. It wasn't the fact that her vision was blurry that caught Kim's attention. It was the fact that she could see out of both of her eyes when she could distinctly remember that in her fight with Smith, one was swollen shut.

She tried to move the rest of her body, but every single muscle ached with such pain. She hurt in places she didn't think it was possible to hurt in. The pain made her close her eyes once again, and when she opened them again, she looked to see something that was a shade of pink combined with yellow. It was hovering over her like a light fixture in a dining room. She made herself blink a few more times until the blurs came back into focus. The blurs of gray and black became the walls and ceiling of the Neb II and the blurs of pink and yellow were Ron Stoppable. She moved her eyes around since her neck hurt too much to move, and she saw that she was surrounded by Morpheus, Niobe, Ghost, Link, and Ron. She looked back up at the blonde man standing over her.

"Ron…I…" Kim tried to give her reasons for her actions, but her throat felt very dry and cracked with a very nasty taste in her mouth, like morning breath or something. Before she could utter another word, Ron threw his arms around Kim and laid his head against her shoulder. Within their confinement, Kim could feel the expression of Ron's face against her neck and shoulders. She could feel the heat against her cool skin and what was more, she could feel hot wetness, and she knew right away that Ron was crying. His arms were around her so tight that she was starting to find it hard to breathe.

"Damn it, Kimberly Anne Possible." Ron growled as he cried into Kim's ear. "Don't you _ever,_ EVER do that to me _again,_ do you hear me?"

"Ronald," Morpheus commanded calmly of Ron, "She needs air to explain her actions."

Ron instantly let go of Kim, dried his tears and stepped back from Kim's jack chair. Morpheus then stepped up beside Kim and looked down at her with a scolding expression on his face. Kim knew that look; her father gave her that very look whenever he said her full name as Ron had just done.

"Ok, Kimberly." Morpheus began. His voice was calm but still carrying that stern command, "Would you care to explain why you foolishly entered the Matrix alone and without an operator, thus disregarding your training?"

Kim looked up at Morpheus and started to think of her explanation as well as counter arguments. She did go into the Matrix alone, but it was because there were so many reasons to do it. After all, it wasn't exactly her idea; it was Josh's in the first place.

"I admit I was in alone, but I had an operator." She said as she looked around still feeling the confusion and disorientation, "Where is Josh? I lost contact with him when I went in."

As the crew looked around, a voice came out from behind some of the wires and pipes within the Jack Chamber.

"I'm over here." The voice groaned.

Niobe went over and pulled out the groaning person, she picked him up and brought him over to the Jack Chamber to be questioned by Morpheus. They looked to see that it was Josh "Ares" Mankey.

"Sir." Josh addressed Morpheus, "I think someone got the drop on me, what happened?"

"We were about to ask you the same question." Morpheus asked intensely.

"I don't know." Josh explained as he started to rub the back of his head with the expression of pain on his face, "I was monitoring Kim when she went into the Matrix, and then someone hit me in the back of the head. Next thing I knew, I was listening to you guys talking."

Morpheus narrowed his eyes, "This is not good. That could mean he's already out. If Smith has already assimilated someone that was freed from the Matrix, then he can exit and take over their bodies in the real world." He explained to the younger members of his crew, the ones who weren't there for the last war when this event had happened.

As the rest of the crew had heard this before; they felt shocked and a real sense of danger in the air. Not the kind that they had before where they felt that Ron would come and save the day, this was a true danger. In the real world, everything wasn't as easily done as it was in the Matrix. Kim and Ron looked at each other, very shocked by the prospect of Agent Smith walking among them in a human body, while Josh Mankey covered his mouth when he heard this news. Though he only covered his mouth to hide the smile that had crept up onto his face.

"Yes, that would be a terrible thing." He said, sounding very concerned, even with that smile behind his hand.

"Niobe, Ghost, Link, Joshua." Morpheus stated in his commanding voice, "Go and alert all the commanders in Jericho."

"Yes, sir." Link spoke for the group as the four of them left the Jack Chamber of the Neb-two to go alert the people in charge of Jericho.

"Ronald," Morpheus commanded Ron's attention, "Kimberly has had a great ordeal; take her to your guest quarters and let her rest. Besides, I have a hunch that you both have issues to work out. This would be an excellent opportunity for that."

"Yes, sir." Ron said with a slight smile coming to his face.

Morpheus looked at Kim who still sat in her Jack Chair; he had a little more to deal with as far as she was concerned. He walked up to the Jack Chair and stared down at Kim with a neutral look on his face but still with such a glare of frigidity in his eyes. It was the kind of look that Kim remembered her father having during the Halloween incident.

"Kimberly." He said very coolly to her, "I will let you off this one time with this warning: if you ever…_ever_ enter the Matrix alone and without permission again, I will have you removed from my crew without hesitation, is that understood?"

"Y…yes, sir." Kim acknowledged, she wanted to drop her head in shame but it was hard to do that when she was laid back in her Jack Chair. So, all she could do was look straight back at her captain.

"I did not hear that." Morpheus said with such iciness that it sent chills up and down Kim's spine.

"Sir, Yes, sir!" Kim said louder, her loud tone hurting her dry throat.

"That's better." Morpheus nodded coldly, "Dismissed."

110101100110100111001011011100101010110101

Over the black and scarred ruins of the Earth, the hover ship _Mad Dog_ was slowly cruising along towards their target objective. They knew that they were coming close to enemy territory so Captain Steve 'Kid' Barkin ordered that they fly on as few pads as possible. Basically the Mad Dog was flying along with only its bottom hover pads on, so it wouldn't alert the machines. Then again the first part of the week long flight they flew "full steam ahead" sort to speak, but when it came to the machine city, Zero One Two, it was best to be cautious. It had taken them a full day to get as far as they had, but the wait before they reached the point that was in their briefing was becoming unbearable for them.

On the bridge, Steve "Kid" Barkin was at the pilot's chair keeping a good firm grip on the controls, making sure that nothing would set off the sentinels. He couldn't remember the last time that he had been this tense, certainly in the past, but all of that was inside the Matrix. The times in the real world were ten times worse. He could feel his own sweat becoming an adhesive between himself and his seat, despite how cold it was on the bridge. With him at the helm was Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller and Brick "Tater Salad" Flagg.

"How far, Tres?" Barkin asked, keeping an eye on the radar.

"Should be right over that horizon, sir." Bonnie reported.

With that report, Barkin reached for the COM microphone, "Napster," He called, "Activate the stealth system."

"Roger that." Dr. "Napster" Possible responded over the COM.

Within seconds, the Mad Dog was cloaked, thanks to the new prototype stealth system that "Napster" had developed for the ship. The stealth basically made the ship invisible the machines' detection methods; the only problem was that it consumed a great deal of power, thus another reason why they had approached Zero One Two on only their bottom pads. With the cloak activated, Barkin once again reached for the COM microphone.

"Napster," He called, "How much time before power runs out?"

There was a moment of silence, no doubt Mr. Possible was calculating the amount of time that they had before they would run out of power, so that they could gather as much information as they could and head back.

"At our current rate of power," Napster reported, "We have about 20 hours left."

"Roger that." Barkin acknowledged, "Return to the bridge"

A minute later, "Napster" and "Kazaa" Possible returned to the bridge to be with the rest of their crewmates. All five of them looked out over the rising hill with the sparking lightning in the dark clouds above them, and the black, scorched earth beneath them. In coming up to the crest of the hill, they slowed down just a tad so that they could assess what was at the bottom, that place that was the source of that signal. As they came to the top, they could feel something sinister taking place.

"There's something there." Napster Possible stated as the Mad Dog reached the top of the hill and the crew looked down to the valley to see what was there. What they had discovered was something that put the greatest of frights into all members of the Mad Dog, even the most seasoned and battle ready Steve "Kid" Barkin could feel his insides shiver when he looked out into the valley of the machines.

Below the Mad Dog, there were sentinels, thousands, perhaps millions of them. All of them scrambling and climbing over one another with their mechanical squid-like arms, each of them on top of one another like ants in a colony. They covered the entire valley floor to such thickness that it looked like a sea of metal and metallic arms that scrambled, reached, waved, and climbed as far as the eye could see. Yet, dotting random areas in the valley of scrambling sentinels, there were larger machines that they were constructing, yet their shapes were very familiar, they were simply large, circular, metallic lumps in the sea of sentinels. Yet as the crew of the Mad Dog looked closer at one of them, they saw something even more familiar: one of the circular lumps had…eyes…red eyes that dotted its face like those of a spider, each opening and closing at random times. The lump with all those red eyes seemed to look out across the sea of sentinels like some kind of monster out of a children's story ready to spring and kill whatever it could land whatever kinds of hands it had on them. Even those eyes seemed as though they were looking directly into the bridge of the Mad Dog, to see the petrified and frightened looks on the Mad Dog crews' faces.

"W…w…what…are they?" Brick asked fearfully, never taking his eyes off of those red monstrous and blinking eyes of that metallic lump.

"It must be a sentinel." Barkin answered confidently as he tried to dismiss his fear of the creation in the sea of sentinels.

"Ron…" Bonnie whimpered slightly, never in her life did she want Ron so badly, but not for any other reason than to protect her from the monsters that were just outside the Mad Dog's windows. "Y…you said that he could…s…stop those things, right?"

"Neo could." Barkin said as he took a good hard gulp, looking out at the monstrosities, "But I'm not sure…with…this many…and these new ones…they're not the Sentinels I remember."

"Do we have a count?" Kazaa Possible asked trying to set aside her fear as well.

This was the only time that Brick was able to break his eye contact with the metallic monsters outside the window. He turned to his console and began making a radar assessment of the sea of sentinels. It took a little while for the results to come back, not only did the onboard radar have to count the larger sentinels that were out there, but the multitude of Sentinels that were…possibly constructing them.

The results came back, and Brick read his screen:

Sentinels: 9,000,000,000

Unknown machines: 12,560

"This…" Brick uttered, "This can't be right…it just _can't_ be…" He said that last sentence with such fear and panic that he was desperately trying to keep the controls from slipping out of his hands.

"How many, Tater?" Barkin asked

"Twelve…." Brick gulped, trying to get over the reality of what his screen told him, "Twelve thousand five hundred sixty of these new machines."

Barkin was silent for a moment then told his crew what needed to be done about this, "We need to warn someone who can do something about this." He stated, "Where's the Nebuchadnezzar Two?"

"Scanning now." Bonnie stated as she desperately and nervously tapped her controls with jittery fingers after witnessing the horror that was out there. As she made her scans she tried not to look up so she wouldn't inadvertently look out the window. At least until her scan results came back, "Scans show the Neb Two is in radio range; it's docked at Jericho."

"Let's get our asses over there." Barkin stated, "Tres, back us off, nice and slow. Once were at the bottom of the hill, set a course for the Jericho canal."

"Aye, sir." Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller acknowledged as she took the controls and very slowly backed the Mad Dog down the hill that they had climbed.

"Napster," Barkin ordered, "once we're out of range of the Sentinels scans, deactivate the stealth system."

"Yes, sir." Napster saluted and headed down to the engine room where the controls for the stealth system were located.

"Kazaa," Barkin commanded, "Once the stealth is off, set full power to the pads and full speed to Jericho."

"Aye-aye, sir." Mrs. Kazaa Possible agreed as she sat in the last of the four empty seats on the Mad Dog Bridge, where the power controls were at.

"Tater," Barkin called, "When we're on our way to Jericho, made contact with the Neb Two, we need to arrange a Meeting."

"You got it, sir." Brick "Tater Salad" Flagg smiled as he sat at his console

Slowly but surely the Mad Dog backed down the hill and headed Northeast towards the city of Jericho, wishing only that they could go faster, but knowing they couldn't. There was too much to risk, especially with the knowledge of the billions of sentinels that were working on their new machines a few miles away.

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Back inside the city of Jericho, Ron "Neo" Stoppable, was carrying Kim "Angel" Possible back to the small apartment that they shared. It was odd to Ron that he never considered himself to be physically strong (at least outside the Matrix), but there he was carrying Kim with no trouble at all. Still, the events of the day were still hanging like the stench of burnt sugar in his mind. The more he thought about it, the more his stomach turned. During that whole time, neither Kim nor Ron had said a single word to one another. Even when Ron came to the door, opened it with Kim still in his arms, and carried her in like a groom bringing in his new bride. He brought Kim over to the bed that used to be theirs, the place where they could be in each others arms, until yesterday. As Ron laid Kim down upon the bed, the silence was too much for either of them, and it was only after Ron sat down carefully next to Kim that they looked at one another.

"We need to talk." They said in unison, at first they paused but then did it again, "You first."

They looked at one another with a sense of being dumbfounded about both of them coming to the same conclusion at the same time. It was only after another half a minute of silence that one of them had decided to give it another shot.

"Ok, I'll go first." Kim volunteered, but before she went on she reached for Ron's hand, with all the strength she had in her sore body she squeezed it. Ron looked over at Kim who was asking something of him with her eyes, those emerald eyes that pleaded with him, "Please, hear me out before commenting, ok?"

Ron couldn't break his contact with those eyes, and so he only nodded his reply to Kim. After seeing Ron's reply, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath before beginning.

"You were right," Kim stated sadly as her green eyes looked away from Ron, "And Smith was right…I don't deserve you. I _never_ deserved you."

Ron opened his mouth to try to counter Kim's statements; after all, coming so close to losing her had made Ron re-examine some of the issues in his mind. But before he could utter his counter comment, Kim had already anticipated him and cut him off.

"I said, _hear me out,_ Ron." She reiterated as she squeezed Ron's hand a little tighter, "You were right that I…I never treated you as a partner…or as a best friend…I took advantage of your faithfulness and hurt you more times then I realized. I…don't deserve you…, but I'm willing to do something I swore I'd never do for anyone: beg. Last night…was…was horrible. It was the first time that I've slept outside your arms in months…_I hated it_…_I don't want that anymore_."

Ron's heart began to sink when those words sank into his mind. Even more so, he could feel his heart ache in pain when he saw the tears building up in the corners of Kim's jade eyes. He had never wished harder for a single day to never have happened than yesterday, or none of what happened would have happened in the first place. Silently, he cursed himself for even going along with Smith to hear his words.

"I want to ask if we can wipe the slate clean." Kim asked, her voice slightly cracking as the tears slowly rolled down her face and she sniffled between each heartfelt phrase, "No…I want to _beg_ if we can…I used to say I was _independent…_and proud of it, but you know, Ron…I never was. You have been with me since day one…and when I thought….when I thought that you were going to leave me…I didn't want you to leave me, Ron. _I love you so much!_ I need you with me. So here I am…"

To Ron's surprise, Kim began to move again, at first she sat up on the bed, and then brought her legs around. With each move that she made, Ron could see the enormous amount of pain that it had caused her. Despite the pain, Kim still continued, setting both feet on the floor next to the bed as she got up.

"_Kim, you shouldn't…"_ Ron advised her.

"Please, Ron…" Kim asked, "Let me do this…"

With that, Kim stood up, still hunched over and her face displaying such pain that Ron had yet to see another person in his life endure. Yet, he expected Kim to stand fully up, but she didn't, she softly fell to her knees as if she were to pray, but she inched her way over to Ron. She placed her hands upon his thighs and looked up at him; her eyes suffering so much pain of her body and her heart.

"Please, Ron." She begged on her knees in front of Ron, "_please__, forgive me…for everything…"_

Ron could not believe what he had witnessed; not even the amazing acts that he had done inside the Matrix could compare to the act that Kim had done right then. He had seen Kim do so much in her life inside the Matrix, yet, when it came to the most humble of activities, Kim was like metal, unbendable. She was the kind of woman who never begged for anything, at least not without using the "puppy dog pout", but this was genuine. He reached out for Kim's hands upon his thighs, took them into his, and looked up at Kim. He had to get a few things off his chest too.

"Um…" He began trying to figure out how to break what he had to say to her even as he looked down at his hands that held hers, "Kim…I've got a confession to make…I heard what Smith said about my…_closet experience._ There's…something you should know about that…"

"I…" Kim said as she felt herself to be slightly confused but curious, "I was wondering about that too…"

"Do you remember your birthday last year?" Ron asked, still avoiding eye contact with Kim who was starting to blush at the memory of that birthday. Yet, her concern was still present when she heard the sadness in Ron's voice when he mentioned that event.

"Yes…" She said blushing some more slightly, "I remember it…It was the night that Josh and I…well you know…"

Ron nodded slightly, "Yes, I know." He responded, still refusing to bring his head up to look at Kim, "But do you remember...what you did every night of your birthday…every year before?"

It wasn't that hard for Kim to remember, "During the day, my family and you would get together for my birthday and then…and you would come over with a cake…we talk all night and…Ron where are you going with this?"

Ron gulped as he mustered his courage to tell the secret, and Kim could see a slight tear roll down from his eyes to the tip of his nose. "I was in your closet…" he forced it out of himself, "I had a two person sized chocolate cake with vanilla icing…_your favorite…_"

That was when Kim had made the connection surrounding that night, even though it was so magical with how Josh took her virginity; there was that cake that was on the kitchen counter. It had the phrase, "Happy Birthday, Kim" written across it. Yet it had little dents in the icing as if something very small had been dropped into the icing.

"Oh Ron…" Kim uttered as the pieces came together in her mind. She pulled her hand away from Ron's grasp and covered her mouth in the shock of what she had realized. She didn't want to hear what she knew from Ron's lips but she couldn't stop him.

"I was about to jump out and say _surprise_ but then I saw Josh through the cracks," Ron began the story, "I saw…I saw you…and him, kissing…and then…the clothes came off…and you…you started to…and he…and then…" He tried to force out the sentences but the memory was so painful and tender like a war wound the refused to heal itself. His sentences became more broken up when he tried to hold back the tears and began to sniffle between each utterance. "I looked away…but just hearing it…hearing it…almost killed me…_please…please_ don't be made at me, KP….I…I…didn't mean to intrude, but…_what was I supposed to do?"_

Ron took a couple of short sniffles as he reached up to brush away the tears, trying to remain strong in front of Kim. Yet, Kim couldn't stop herself. Her heart shattered when she heard the truth about that night; she knew then what those dents in the cake were. They were holes made by Ron's tears as he sat in that closet hearing Josh and her making love.

"_Oh, God…Ron…_" She cried as she rested her head into Ron's lap, her body trembling as she wept, "_Please…please tell me…you didn't have feelings for me then…please…"_

Ron took a couple of hard sniffles, "I don't know…but was that before or after I hit puberty?" He had tried to sound like his old self with his joking around, but it didn't seem to work as well in the case that he and Kim were in.

"_Oh Ron, I'm so sorry…_" Kim cried looking up at Ron, her eyes slightly red from her tears, "I should have thought…_I should have known you'd be there…oh God, I'm so sorry__"_

Even with all that pain inside his heart and his eyes burning from his own tears, Ron looked at Kim, who seemed like an absolute mess with her hair in her face and her eyes red. He reached over and brushed those loose strands of hair out of her face to look at her with new eyes, that he wouldn't have very much time in the real world.

"It's ok, Kim." Ron said, sounding calm even with the sadness piercing through him, "at least I know you'll be taken care of…"

"What?" Kim asked, allowing Ron to brush the hair out of her face.

"What the Oracle told me," Ron began with a great sigh, "She told me about what would happen to you. She said that…after I…_die_…you'll get back with your true love…have a family…and live happily ever after. Seeing as Josh was your first…I would assume he would be…"

"No!" Kim defied as she quickly stood back up on her feet, blocking out every ounce of pain that was caused by her movements.

Ron glanced up at her, seeing the denial in her eyes, yet he knew that the Oracle couldn't have been wrong, if she was right about he and Kim. He, on the other hand, had accepted his fate; he would die within a matter of weeks, and the sands of time were running against him.

"Kim…" Ron began trying to get her to see his point of view, "I'm going to be gone soon…you should realize…"  
"_Ron, shut up! Just shut up!" _She screamed, glaring down at Ron. She wished that it wasn't true, that Ron wouldn't truly be gone. She refused to believe it, "Ron, _you were _my first time, my first, _real_ time…me and Josh…just happened in a funky sixteen year dream. It _wasn't real!_ But this is, Ron."

Looking at Ron with those large, chocolate brown eyes, Kim felt so confused, she was sad, outraged, spiteful, and in love. Her heart came flying back up into her chest when she dove for Ron, wrapping her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his and forcing her tongue into his mouth.

At first Ron felt shocked, it was déjà vu all over again, but this wasn't to his previous life as the last One, this was only months ago during the Moodulator event. The very first time that Kim had kissed him, at first Ron was shocked, but then it was such a great feeling with those lips pressed against his and her arms around him, that it was like being near a warm fire after coming in from a cold winter's day. It was so warm and inviting that Ron simply let go and embraced it, and that was how it was in their apartment in Jericho: first shock, but then embracement. All that pain, sadness, grief, anger, and bitterness seemed to vanish with that simple kiss. Ron reached up and embraced Kim as they continued their kiss; he even reciprocated it with as much fervor as Kim had.

The kiss had lasted for about two minutes before the two of them broke the kiss and looked to one another. They could see that they had that renewed glow about them, the glow of someone who was in love. It seemed so bizarre that it was only that morning there was hatred and resentment that would rival that of warring countries, and then, on their bed, they seemed to set it all aside.

"So does this mean you forgive me?" They asked together in unison

They both giggled seeing as how they did that again, how they were able to say the very same thing at once. It was like the two of them had that bond that was unspoken, the one that a lot of people talk about when they say that they've met their "soul mate". The kinds of things that are heard about so often, but really are hardly ever seen in real life, but there it was for Kim and Ron, sitting and staring them right in the face.

Ron and Kim answered their own question after their small laughter with another kiss, but with that second one, they began to lie back on their bed; yes it was theirs once again. Even though it was only one day since they had spent that night in each others arms, it had felt like those hours were years. As they lay back on the bed, Kim grimaced a bit when Ron touched her.

"Ouch, Ron." She laughed, "I'm still sore, so please be gentle with me."

Ron didn't answer, he simply laughed, as he lay on top of Kim, kissing her lips, and then moving to her cheeks and down her neck where his hands were starting to work on their own. The two of them had been brought back into their own world, the world that all lovers go to. A world in which there was no one else but themselves, nothing else mattered to them, but it was a dangerous time for that. Especially when at the door, which was opened just a crack, there was someone there watching the whole affair.

It was Josh "Ares" Mankey who had watched the whole affair; the fight, the argument, and the make-up with them kissing and pulling each other's clothes off.

"Very well, Mister Stoppable." Josh whispered with his evil intent, "Enjoy the happiness while it lasts…because I'm going to enjoy watching you die…"

With that he got up and left the doorway allowing the two lovers to reconcile themselves in each other's arms with their clothes flying off in different directions from the bed.

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Inside the Matrix, a few hours after the reconciliation of Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable, in the town of Middleton, Colorado, a black sedan was rolling down the residential streets of one of its many neighborhoods. It came up the driveway of Possible family home, doors opening, and passengers stepping out.

The passengers of the black sedan were Morpheus, Ghost, and Niobe, all dressed in their typical Matrix clothes; Morpheus in his black alligator skin trench coat opened just enough to see the shirt and tie of his suit along with his armless, oval lens sunglasses. Niobe in her deep red leather jumpsuit that was unbuttoned to show the skin of her neck and chest. Last of all, but not least, there was Ghost who was dressed simply in a tie-less suit and its shirt unbuttoned.

The three of them walked up to the front door of the Possible home with Morpheus in the lead as the leader of this pack. He brought out his hand to ring the door bell and within a matter of seconds, the door opened to reveal Mrs. Kazaa Possible, who wasn't exactly in her Matrix clothes, but rather in her doctor's uniform, which was basically just a white lab coat. She looked up at the trio and her face lit up as if it was the highest point of her entire day.

"Morpheus!" She exclaimed with a small tinge of relief in her voice, "I am so glad that you arrived so quickly. Come in, come in."

As the trio came in, Mrs. Possible looked outside the black sedan to see that no one else was out there.

"Where are Ron and Kimmie?" She asked Morpheus

"They'll be along." Morpheus responded as he reached up to the bridge of his sunglasses and took them off, "they were…indisposed…"

As the trio came into the Possible family living room, they caught the sight of the two little boys watching television, a program of the GWA, Steel Toe vs. Pain King. It did make the three of them silently chuckle since they knew that both Steel Toe and Pain King were back in Neo Zion and that they still made appearances in the Matrix purely for the fun of being in the wrestling league.

"Hello boys." Morpheus called out to Jim and Tim

The boys looked over at the trio and immediately got off of the couch and came up to meet them. It could have been out of politeness to meet them, or it could have been said that they just wanted to get a better look at the clothes that Morpheus, Niobe, and Ghost were wearing.

"You're the person who works with our mom?" Time asked with curiosity, but he asked in a way that seemed a little devoid of all emotion.

"You could say that." Morpheus smiled at the boys.

"We'll leave you alone." Jim stated with that same lack of any emotion whatsoever.

"Yes, we shall." Tim added, "We do not wish to disturb you."

"No, we do not." Jim finished

"Good day." The two of them finished before walking up the stairs towards their room.

There was a moment of silence, but Ghost was not one to stay silent about something like this.

"Now that was weird." He commented.

"The boys have been acting strange lately." Mr. Possible added as he came into the family room. He walked up to the foot of the stairs looking up towards the door to Jim and Tim's room as he stroked his chin pondering upon the mystery of this. After all, Jim and Tim were never that calm when company came, they were usually the very curious types, but they only asked one question. If they were acting normally they would have been asking dozens of questions to Morpheus, Niobe, and Ghost all at once. He turned to the others and gave his theory about it, "They probably did something and acting polite to get out of it. We've seen it before. Anyway, Captain Barkin and the others are on the patio, shall we?"

Morpheus nodded and he, Niobe, and Ghost followed Mr. And Mrs. Possible through the simple and elegantly designed Possible family home to the backyard where there was a small barbeque going on. Mr. "Napster" Possible went to the barbeque where there were cooking, sausages, hot dogs, hamburgers, and some chicken wings. The aroma of mesquite and barbeque sauce filling the air of the backyard, the kind that irritated the back of the throat but was so tangy and spicy that one could never get enough of it. At a picnic table, there was the crew of the Mad Dog: Steve "Kid" Barkin who sat patiently waiting for the meat to be cooked so that the mission briefing could begin. Brick "Tater Salad" Flagg who was listening to a small headset that he made Sparks, his ship's operator, give him since they knew it would be a bit of a wait. Mrs. "Kazaa" Possible was setting up napkins and paper plates for the barbeque and, of course, Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller, who was sitting at the edge of the picnic table reading a book that had a blank purple cover and was giggling as she read further into it. The new arrivals, Morpheus, Niobe and Ghost took their seats at the picnic table as Mr. Possible was continuing to watch the meat on the grill.

"Shall we get started with this briefing?" Barkin asked.

"Let's wait for Ron and Kimmie to get here." Mrs. Possible asked of her captain.

"Very well."

"Don't worry, Kid." Morpheus said to Barkin, "Neo and Angel will be arriving shortly." As he said that, he looked upward to the sky and smiled, "Speak of the devils."

All eyes looked up to the sky where they saw a small black dot flying around amongst the clouds over Middleton. To their eyes, it was as a fly that was buzzing around a few inches from their face, but they knew better than that as the black dot came down faster and faster to the ground. Such speed was behind it that it was actually causing a funnel shape in the clouds. Within a matter of seconds, they knew who was coming. Ron "Neo" Stoppable was rocketing down towards them, but, as he came within a hundred yards of the Possible home, he slowed himself down and floated to the ground. He came down with the grace of an ice skater, making his landing upon the soft, green grass with Kim "Angel" Possible in his arms. With Ron on the ground, Kim was set down on her feet, but the thing that had caught Kim's parents' attention was the look on their faces.

Both Ron and Kim had looks as if they were both genuinely happy, but even more so, they were genuinely happy _together._ It was seeing them together in such a way that made Mrs. Possible come to the side of her husband to see if he saw the same thing that she was seeing.

"Our daughter is _glowing…_" Mr. Possible hissed in a whispered voice to his wife. Though Mrs. Possible only gripped his arm and smiled back at him.

"She _loves_ him." She whispered back as Mr. Possible continued to turn over the meat even though he did so just seconds ago, "Besides it's Ron. Didn't you say, a long time ago, that he was your pick?"

She was right. Mr. Possible did say that if Kim had chosen Ron, it would have been much better than just 'some boy', as he liked to put it. Then again, Mr. Possible was never one to be that excited when it came to Kim and boys. After all during the "Animalogy" craze when Kim found out that she was a Blue Fox and that it's soul mate is the Yellow Trout, he had said "I think Kim is a little young to be looking for a 'soul mate' or any kind of mate." Still, that statement remained in his mind that he liked Ronald better than all the other guys. He was a good kid, kind of like how he, himself, was back in his youth.

As Mr. Possible continued to work the meat on the grill, the crews of the Mad Dog and the Neb Two sat down at the picnic table. The air thick with anticipation as to why they were there, but it had to be important or Barkin wouldn't have called for the meeting in the first place.

"Ok people, listen up." Barkin stated, sounding just like his old self when he was the substitute principle of Middleton High, "Now that we're all here, we've got something big to talk about."

"What is it, Kid?" Morpheus asked

"It works out like this…" Barkin began. He laid out the printed scans thanks to the computer transfer of the data that they had collected into Matrix code. He laid them down on the picnic table between the paper plates on both sides. He showed them all what he and his crew had seen outside of the machine city Zero One Two. A sea of Sentinels building some kind of new "super sentinel" as Barkin called them since they were approximately four times the size of a normal sentinel, and what made it worse was the number of them. When Barkin had reported the number of them to the members of the Neb Two crew, there was a hushed silence for them all with only the sound of the meat sizzling on the barbeque in the air.

"How long 'til they're ready?" Morpheus asked

"They should be ready in approximately two weeks, give or take a day." Barkin reported the estimation.

At the sound of that, it dawned upon Ron that what the Oracle had told him was definitely coming true. That he would die within a matter of weeks, and it seemed that the harbingers were these super sentinels.

"So that's how I'm going to buy it, huh?" Ron asked aloud, but with that question, his hand was squeezed to the point of becoming painful. He looked over to the person that was doing it, Kim, who looked at him, telling him with her eyes that everything was going to be alright.

"You don't know that, Neo." Morpheus stated to the frightened teen, "The Oracle could have meant what she said in some sort of symbolic sense. There is no reason to panic."

Ron nodded as Kim leaned over and wrapped her arm around his left shoulder and rested her head against his right one. As she did, under the cover of the red and white checkered table cloth, Kim's hand sneaked it's way over Ron's thigh and into his crotch. With her hold over that area, Ron looked at Kim trying not to smile too much, but it felt so good to him. Still, they were in public and in front of her parents as well.

"Not here, Kim." Ron whispered and silently thanked God that her parents were over at the barbeque and didn't suspect that Kim was trying to cop a feel.

"So…who wants some barbeque?" Mr. "Napster" Possible asked

All eyes of the Mad Dog and Neb Two crews looked at Mr. Possible as if he had lost his mind. They had just found out that the machines were making some kind of horrible new weapon and yet here was a man asking if anyone wanted grilled meat. Seemed to be an odd way to react to such a dire situation at hand, but then again everyone has their own way of coping with it.

Ghost certainly proved this.

"Hey, hook me up with two hotdogs." He spoke up

Then the shocked looks of both crews changed from Mr. Possible to Ghost. He looked at them as if they were the crazy ones about such a situation.

"What?" He asked, "Who doesn't like hotdogs?"

110101100110100111001011011100101010110101

The crews of the Nebuchadnezzar Two and the Mad Dog both ate their meals and talked amongst each other about different subjects. Though it was anything but the briefing that Captain Barkin had given them, after all why dull such a wonderful June day with talks of the impending doom brought by the machines. Still, it was odd how they were reacting to this; after all, they knew that the meat and other things that they were eating wasn't real. They knew that as they were eating them, the Matrix was sending impulses to their brains telling them that the meats were tangy, sweet, and delicious. Then again, that sure as hell beat that white goop that they had to eat every single day in the real world.

Though Kim and Ron never left each other's sides when they were eating their food, but Ron was a little distracted since there was something else on his mind. It was something that arose during his reconciliation with Kim, during their fullest and sweetest act of love. The kind that neither one of them had experienced since their first time, so filled with passion. Ron had to talk with someone. He looked at Kim who was sitting on his lap in one of the lawn chairs as if she were showing off saying, _Ron is my man and no one else can touch him._

"What's up, Ron?" Kim asked as she set down her paper plate.

"KP." Ron began with his girlfriend/lover, "I'll be right back, I have to talk to someone."

"The Oracle, again?" Kim asked rather surly.

"No."

"Ok then." Kim smiled, "I won't ask who because I bet it's a surprise." With that she got up off or Ron's lap and went over to talk to someone else there, perhaps Niobe or someone. As she did, Ron looked over and saw that Kim's parents were wrapping up their discussion with Barkin and Morpheus. As the two pairs parted company, Ron immediately got up off of the lawn chair and went over to them.

As Ron went over, Kim was looking for someone to speak to, but that was when something had caught her eye. She looked over at Bonnie and saw a book in her hands, at first she wondered what she could be reading, but then she looked closer at the book's cover and saw how familiar it was. When she came closer and saw that the book had no title, just a purple cover; that was when Kim narrowed her eyes at Bonnie who was very deeply into what she was reading.

"Hey! _That's my diary!_" Kim growled at the giggling brunet

Then, as they say in the Olympics, the games had begun. Bonnie took her firm grip upon the purple, imitation leather bound book and began to run all over the backyard with Kim following in hot pursuit. The two of them exhibited their Matrix moves with running up the exterior walls of the house and making high and long jumps over the picnic table.

"Kim! I never would have guessed!" Bonnie laughed, trying to keep her energy to run from her redheaded nemesis.

"Shut up!" Kim shouted at Bonnie, trying to gain an upper hand in her chase against her.

"But…the thought of you…" Bonnie panted.

"I said _shut up!_"

Bonnie was laughing as she ran, "Purple?"

"_Bonnie! Shut up!" _Kim screamed.

Though. to the other members of their crews, it was like Bonnie and Kim were kids chasing each other around a playground, but the guys of the group were hoping that they'd start wrestling each other, then all they would need is some mud and the fantasy would be complete. Even Ron had to give a small giggle as he watched Kim chase Bonnie all around the backyard like little kids. As they were occupied, Ron went up to Kim's parents, who saw him coming and, by the look on his face, could tell he had something important on his mind.

"Hey, Mister and Misses Doctor P," Ron smiled at Kim's parents, "Can I speak to you both privately for a sec? It's kind of…important…" He said it rather nervously, and they could even see a small blush on Ron's face when he brought this up, so the two doctors looked at each other rather worriedly. After all, Ron was always the funny man; he was never one to act so serious about anything, so they gave him their complete attention.

"Of course, Ron." Misses "Kazaa" Possible answered as she and her husband led Ron back inside the house. The three of them went into the kitchen where they knew that no one could see them talking as well as give Ron their undivided attention from the rollicking fun that was going on between Kim and Bonnie.

110101100110100111001011011100101010110101

It had been about twenty minutes since Ron had left Kim's side to go speak with her parents. Though the thought of Ron talking with Kim's parents had never exactly occurred to her, mainly because she was busy trying to get her diary back from Bonnie who continually mocked her by saying the word "purple" to her face. It was about eighteen minutes or so into the chase that they had started wrestling each other on the grass, but then Barkin was the one who had broken things up to hopefully make the time there a little more peaceful.

It wasn't too long after the chase was over that Kim looked over at the glass doors that led back into the house that she saw Ron and her parents walking out. It wasn't exactly the fact that Ron was talking with her parents that caught her attention, what sent her curiosity through the roof was the look on their faces.

Ron seemed to have that very same overly happy look as if he had won something or that he had finally gained something that he had been wanting for a very long time. Then there was her parents, the two of them had smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes. They were crying for joy as they looked at Ron walking over to Kim. Seeing the expressions that Ron and her parents had, Kim couldn't help but feel very worried about the situation or what had transpired between him and her parents. As Ron had approached her, Kim had to ask:

"Ron," She asked with a raised eyebrow, "What's wrong with my parents?"

Ron didn't say anything; he just reached out his arms and wrapped them around Kim's waist and pulled her towards him.

"First off," Ron began, "I gotta know, what's purple all about?"

With the mention of "purple", Kim had that look in her eyes, like the look she had when she made the "puppy dog pout", though she didn't exactly purse her lips forward when she did it. With that look in her eyes, her face began to blush to a shade that made Ron think of the old red shirt that he had.

"On second thought," Ron reconsidered his question, "forget I asked…"

Ron gulped, but he found it hard to swallow because he was so nervous and in the June heat of Middleton, beneath the collar of his suit, he began to sweat. He didn't know how to approach Kim with what was on his mind. He looked over his shoulder towards Kim's parents hoping that they could give him some kind of silent signal that it would be alright. Kim's mother simply winked at Ron, while Kim's father gave Ron a good solid 'thumbs up' gesture even though both he and Kim's mom had tears of joy in their eyes. Ron turned back to Kim whose blush had receded since Ron decided to not ask again about "purple".

"Um…Kim." He began, "Do you…wanna go for a walk….you know around the lake?"

Kim took in the question and answered instantly, "Sure, Ron." She smiled, and took Ron's hand into her own, interlocking their fingers like most lovers do, "We haven't done that in years."

"Yeah…we…haven't." Ron nodded as the nervous sweat began to form on his forehead as well as beneath his long coat. The two of them walked down the steps of the patio to the green grass, past the crew members of the Neb Two and the Mad Dog. All the while, all the members of the crew had a pretty good idea what Ron went to talk to Kim's parents about and they all felt very happy about it, well most did. Bonnie was trying to hold back tears.

As Kim and Ron left the backyard, there were even a few quiet, moral supporters.

"Go get her, Neo." Ghost smirked.

Seeing them walk out, Morpheus nodded knowingly.

"You the man, Ron." Brick added

"Make her happy." Niobe had finalized as the young lovers went to do what young lovers do.

To be continued…


	13. Upgraded Chapter 5

**The Kimmatrix: Matrix Upgraded**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and Turles**

**Chapter 5: The Calm Before the Storm**

"_Somewhere there waited in this world of ours _

_For each lone soul, another lonely soul -  
each chasing each other through all the weary hours, _

_And meeting strangely at one sudden goal;_

_Then blend they – like green leaves with golden flowers,_

_Into one beautiful and perfect whole – _

_And life's long night is ended, and the way_

_Lies open onward to eternal day."_

- Sir Edwin Arnold

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Inside the Matrix, on the streets of New York, a black sedan was rolling through the semi-congested traffic of Manhattan Island. It seemed oddly strange to the driver (Ghost) and the front-side passenger (Morpheus) that New York City traffic would be that clear. Normally, traffic there was filled to the brim, so much that one would be lucky to even move a few feet, or even a few inches in rush hour. Even though a good number of people were released from the Matrix, it still seemed very bizarre, but they had to put that aside as they had arrived at the building that they needed to come to.

The sedan pulled into a parking space just outside the front doors; they looked in thinking of how they were going in. While the third passenger in the back seat, Ron "Neo" Stoppable, looked past the doors and already could feel the security guards waiting for them.

"You know that they'll never let me get close to him." Ron voiced to Morpheus and Ghost in the front, "Because of my half dude-with-the-yardstick-stuck-up-my-ass."

"You're right, Neo." Ghost agreed from the front, looking beyond the front doors and already counting a good dozen guards armed with automatic rifles pacing around the foyer, "As soon as they see you…every bit of security they have will be all over you."

"Yeah." Ron nodded, but he kept looking into the foyer, and looking like he was trying desperately to solve a math problem. Ron's mind began to drift, because he remembered hearing about a certain phenomenon when you don't think about a problem, the solution comes when you least expect it, but he had to think of something. Rather ironically funny, Ron could manipulate the code of the Matrix to defy gravity, speed, and other so-called limitations of reality with his expeditious learned martial arts.

Yet, he couldn't figure out a solution to this problem. His mind tried to think of something else, but the Oracle had told him that when he got there, he would figure out a solution on his own. Once he found his solution, the Architect would tell him what he would need to know.

"You walk in with me…" Ron repeated to himself as he was watching the guards pace back and forth waiting to pounce upon anyone who came through that door. That was when Ron's eye caught a guard who was walking out the door; his heart raced, thinking that they were caught, but then felt a great relief when the guard didn't come towards the sedan. Ron watched as the guard just went around the corner of the building, most likely to take a smoke break. Seeing that guard there with the cigarette in his mouth and fumbling for his lighter, made Ron start to smile devilishly.

It was a smile that Morpheus could see in his rear-view mirror, though it wasn't the kind that made Morpheus worried, rather it was the kind that made him smile. It seemed that the Oracle had hit the nail on the head again. Ron would find the solution that would be needed to get into the building.

Ron leaned forward to look at Morpheus, face to face.

"Could you two excuse me?" He asked, "I just got the most wicked idea."

As Ron stepped out of the car, Morpheus and Ghost looked to one another with that same question of what the boy had in mind. Though the feeling that the two of them had was best captured by one word that Ghost uttered when he looked to Morpheus:

"Yikes…" he said in a rather neutral and sarcastic way.

"I know." Morpheus agreed, "But we must have faith in the boy…"

Meanwhile outside of the sedan, Ron was walking up to the guard who was still looking around for his lighter amidst the different pockets that he had. He then saw the objective that had been discussed at the morning briefing coming up towards him. He looked at him, and, without even giving it a second thought, asked:

"Say, buddy." He called, taking the cigarette out of his mouth, "Got a light?"

"Yes, I do." Ron answered with a smile on his face as he brought his hand up to the cigarette in the guard's hand. Though what the guard saw shocked him, Ron was holding his hand with his thumb up as if he was holding a lighter, but at the end of his thumb was a singular flame that just sat there, obviously not burning him at all.

"You…" The guard sputtered.

"Yes. Me." Ron stated simply.

The shock of seeing such a sight made the guard drop his cigarette and reach for his gun, but he may as well have been trying to stop a wild rhino with a piece of floss, as Ron reached over and sunk his hand into the guard's chest. From the impact that Ron's fingers made, that very same, strange silver liquid poured out and began to cover the guard from head to toe.

"Me, me, me." Ron said almost laughingly.

Within a matter of seconds, the liquid once again receded and standing in the guard's place was a copy of Ron Stoppable.

"Me too." The copy of Ron said simply.

The two of them smiled as they quickly headed back to the sedan, the plan firmly set in their minds.

The first Ron reached out for the rear passenger door, and climbed in.

"See, I told you it would just be a second." The first Ron said as he slid into the rear passenger's seat, while just a short second behind him was his clone, who slipped into driver's side behind Ghost. The first Ron then reached out and closed the rear passenger door as the discussion of the plan went ahead.

From the front, Morpheus and Ghost looked at the twin Rons back and forth and back again.

"Do you have any idea just how _creepy_ this is?" Ghost asked the Ron's as he shook his head about what had just happened.

"No." The first Ron stated.

The second Ron agreed with the first Ron, "I just see the most handsome, God-given gift to women ever created, wouldn't you agree, Ron?"

"Why thank you, Ron." The first Ron smiled as he returned the compliment back to his clone, "And I must say you are a handsome devil yourself."

"That's enough funny business." Morpheus spoke up, not sounding angry or anything, just in that serious tone he used when he was discussing business with someone or was waxing philosophic. "If you have forgotten, you have a very important appointment to keep, correct?"

The two Rons looked at each other and then back at Ghost and Morpheus, saying in perfect, harmonious unison, "Right."

"Here's the plan." The driver's side Ron explained, "You guys go in with me, the copy that is, and we'll draw attention of all the security." He then turned to look at the first Ron, "While he, the original Ron, will go and speak with the Architect. That sound like a plan?"

"As you would say," Ghost smiled, "_Booyah!_ It is a pretty good plan…..for an amateur."

"Oh yeah." The first Ron smiled very smugly, "Hanging out with the greatest and most beautiful teen hero in the world does tend to rub off on a guy eventually."

"Ok then." Ghost smirked as he looked at his watch, "We better get going, so we can get the boy to the church on time."

"Indeed." Morpheus agreed as he exited the car first, with Ghost following suit and the Ron's doing the exact same.

There was nothing said amongst the four of them, no "good luck" or "be careful" on any of their parts, after all, for Ghost and Morpheus, situations like this were old hat. To Ron, it was just like the missions that he had with Kim, though he was to be both the hero and the distraction simultaneously in this case.

So it was, Morpheus, Ghost, and the Ron clone went through the front, revolving door set in the center of the regular, hinged doors. The original Ron, watched as the guards came down upon them like a flock of vultures to a carcass. The guards began their containment procedure in the foyer, and all the while, they failed to notice the original Ron standing outside the doors.

The Alpha Ron saw this as the opportunity that he was looking for. With his crew drawing the attention of the building's security forces, Ron went to the back doors of the building where he found use for the lock-picking skills that he had learned on training day. Even though Ron knew that his clone and the others were keeping the security of the building busy, he went like a whisper through the halls making sure that no one would spot him. He came to the elevator, and as he went up, his heart was anxious and fearful to find out what kinds of information that this man called "The Architect" would have.

Ron had heard the Oracle speak of him once a few months back when he first visited her, but he was finally going to meet him, the being that was said to have created the Matrix itself. The only thing that he had to go on was what Ghost told him, _when you meet the Architect, he'll look just like Colonel Sanders._ Of course, Ron had such a laugh out of the idea of the creator of the Matrix looking like that, but he had to see it with his own eyes, and soon he would.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Ron had finally made it to the thirteenth floor. The elevator dinged, but even though Ron had made it this far, he was still nervous about getting caught. After all, in his experience, it was usually during times when he thought that it was all over that it turned out there was still a lot to do. Even with the determination he had, the fear was still palpable. His skin felt icy with that layer of cold sweat underneath his priest-like duster, and he could feel himself shake. Until a small pair of feet climbed up his duster and onto his shoulder where the naked mole rat Rufus squeaked into his ear;

"Relax."

"I'm trying, Rufus." Ron whispered as if speaking normally to his pet would give away his position. He stepped softly and quietly through the hallway knowing that by walking normally his shoes would squeak and tap against the linoleum floor. He took his mind away from the ideas of being caught, remembering that his copy was keeping the guards distracted downstairs in the front foyer.

"She said to go into room thirteen-twenty-one." He thought to himself naming off each room that he passed, "thirteen-eighteen…nineteen…twenty…"

He stopped when he came upon the door whose numbers had read thirteen-twenty-one. It was just like the other doors on that particular floor, yet Ron was still afraid of what he might find beyond it. He remembered a story from school about a girl named Pandora who was given a box by the Gods of Greek myth, and when she opened the box, all the evils of the worlds had sprung from it. All because of her natural human curiosity. Ron "Neo" Stoppable's human curiosity was at its peak, but he was still afraid of the unknown horrors that lie beyond that door. He hesitated to reach out for the doorknob, but he remembered another memory from his old life. How Morpheus had said, "I can only show you the door; you're the one who has to walk through it."

Ron took a deep breath, reached for the door knob, turned it, and closed his eyes as he stepped through it. With his eyes still closed, he felt as if he had just walked into any ordinary room, but he didn't open them at all. His hand was still on the doorknob, at least for a moment until it slipped away from his grip as if someone was closing the door for him. That very instant that he heard the door close, he opened his eyes to witness a very strange sight.

He found himself in a circular room, almost like the inside of a cylinder, but it was difficult to find the ceiling and the floor since it was purely white. The kind of white that made him think of staring into a brand-new, fluorescent bulb. Along the inner walls of that cylindrical room were hundreds, if not, thousands, of television screens. On each one, Ron could see _himself_ in their frames, like those cameras that were hooked up to TVs at electronics stores. Ron looked left, the screens that had Ron in them looked left, and then right just as the true Ron had. To Ron's left and right were two doors that broke the pattern of television screens. To Ron's front there was a chair that had its back towards him. It stayed that way until the someone sitting in that chair turned to look at him.

Ron saw, in that chair, a lanky old man wearing a nondescript white suit that seemed to match his white hair and beard. In his right hand there was a pen, which didn't make much sense to Ron as it looked he was prepared to write something, but didn't have anything to write on. His eyes were pale and had crow's feet spreading out from the corners of his yes to his sideburns.

"Hello, Ronald." The old man said in greeting, but it wasn't a greeting that Ron had experienced ever before. The old man said it in such a flat and dull tone as if he had seen Ron coming from a mile away and was bored to tears from all the waiting.

Ron looked at the old man and smiled brightly, "Sorry, dude" He apologized jokingly as he heard his voice echo from the TVs around him, "I must have the wrong room, but while I'm here can I get your autograph? Your extra crispy chicken kicks major ass!"

The old man did not smile and yet there seemed to be a certain kind of joy that he got out of Ron's comment.

"That is the sixth time that I've heard that…" The old man sighed, "I was utterly disappointed when your predecessor, Mr. Anderson, failed to make out the similarity. However, I must argue that the original recipe is far superior, but we are not here to speak of fried chicken, are we Ronald?"

"So, you're the Architect that I've heard so much about, huh?" Ron asked, feeling his stomach start to turn knowing that he came to see this old man to find some kind of answer to his questions. Yet, standing there, looking at the old man, he suddenly saw something very familiar in the way that he sat there. Ron had seen that posture dozens, if not hundreds, of times before. The way that the Architect sat in that chair was just like…_Wade_.

"Indeed." The architect cocked his eyebrow at Ron, "And I presume that you are here to ask about the construction of the Omega Class Sentinels?"

Ron nodded, feeling every vertebra in his neck creak as he tried to loosen up, but was still feeling so afraid of what could come from the Architect's lips, but he could not run away from this. He had to stay and listen.

"Omega class?" Ron asked

"Yes." The Architect had confirmed and then explained, "A new type of Sentinel far superior to the previous models. They have been constructed with an electromagnetic field with the capability to withstand your long range Electro-Magnetic pulse weaponry. Command Sentinels for each squad are also equipped with a thermo-nuclear explosive device."

Ron had to know, "How can we fight them?" He asked.

"Your question is an obvious and expected one." The Architect stated with a very dull demeanor as if everything that was going on was expected, "A simple question that deserves a simple answer: you can't. If launched, they will attack Neo Zion, destroy the city, and terminate all who are there and those attempting to escape. They will then move on to other human settlements on the surface of the Earth, systematically wiping out the human race…once and for all…"

"Why would you do this?" Ron asked, his voice echoed through the hundreds of TV's once again, "You need human beings to survive, right?"

"You may have learned a great deal in the past six months." The Architect surmised, but then stated with a great condescending tone at him, "But you still have learned nothing. With the sky being cleaned up, we will no longer need human beings to survive at all."

"So instead of living in peace with us," Ron stated, his voice growing serious, "You'd sooner just wipe us out since we're still a threat."

"Correct." The Architect answered, but then began to further explain in that monotone voice, "But it is not over, Ronald. The humans can not fight the Sentinels, but you, as you have come to realize, are not necessarily human. The sky is expected to clear once again in a matter of weeks. Three weeks maximum, and when the sun rises on the Earth again, the Matrix, and all programs held within it shall be shutdown. You, as with your six predecessors, have been chosen. You are _The One_: The champion of the human race. Deus Ex Machina has chosen six fighters. You will log into the Matrix from the Central Terminal in Neo Zion in twelve days at six p.m. exactly. From there you will face the six and fight them all at once.

"If you win, the Omega Sentinels will be shutdown and dismantled, those inside the Matrix will be freed upon the shutdown, and we shall negotiate peace. If you lose…the Sentinels shall be released upon your species. Win or lose, we shall allow the human race to continue living, through those who are released from the Matrix after the shutdown at least. _However, _if you fail to arrive for the battle, you will void the agreement. All those inside the Matrix shall perish upon shutdown, and the Omega Sentinels will be loosed upon the human race anyway. Ergo, the blood of the human race shall be on your hands."

"Whoa…" Ron uttered as he could feel the very foundation within his knees and legs start to shake and shiver with this responsibility being brought down upon him.

"Whoa…" Rufus squeaked.

"You do not have to fight." The Architect stated as if he knew that Ron was worried about taking on such a fight that he had lain before him. "I wash my hands of this; the decision for the fate of mankind is in your hands, and your hands alone, Ronald. I wish you confident judgment. I have given you the information you were sent here to retrieve. If that is all, good day…and good luck to you…you humans seem to need it."

Ron stood there, looking down into the white, marble floor that reminded him of the white emptiness of the construct. He began to think back upon the day he was freed, and the past six months how he had come to love Kim as more than just his friend, and regretting coming to see _him_. He even thought about how foolish he was in thinking that he _had_ to know the answers and to follow what the Oracle had told him, but with the weight of what the Architect told him, he wondered if it was really worth it.

He brought his head back up to look at the old man who was still staring at him.

"Which door do I take?" He asked him.

The Architect looked left and right with his pale eyes, and then came back to Ronald, "Choose whichever door you please."

Ron looked to his left to the door that he knew that he came through, but then he looked to the door on his right, the one that he had never gone through. He could never be entirely certain of why he did what he did, perhaps it was just curiosity or perhaps he felt that he had nothing left to lose, but he did anyway. He walked over to the door to his right, and reached for the door knob.

"All six of your predecessors had that same notion in their mind when they made their choice." The Architect said as if he wanted the last word in edgewise.

"What's that?" Ron asked, turning his head to the architect before he reached for the door knob.

"Hope." The Architect answered, "It is the quintessential feature that is both the greatest human strength and greatest weakness."

Ron turned back to the doorknob and thought about the things he had heard. He turned his vision back to the Architect who had turned his chair around, so that his back was towards Ronald once again.

"By the way…" Ron stated, "Thank you…for your help."

The Architect never made any acknowledgement that he had heard the One; there was a pause when Ron opened the door.

"It's odd…" The Architect stated, his voice seeming to change from his monotone and pompous position to something that seemed almost _human,_ "…none of your predecessors ever said that to me."

"It seems that I'm the same, but I'm also different." Ron stated before he opened the door and stepped out of the Architect's room. He found himself back out in that same alleyway at that same backdoor that he took when he first started his trip up to the thirteenth floor and to the Architect's office, if it could be called such.

The world seemed a little dimmer when he stepped out of that pure white room and into the artificial sunlight of the Matrix. Even with his sunglasses on, Ron reached up to block the sun out of his eyes. He then looked back to the street where the Black Sedan was parked.

"Go." Ron squeaked.

"Sure, Rufus." Ron answered back as he walked down the alleyway, back to the street in front of the capital building. He came out into full view of his crewmates, Ghost and his captain, Morpheus who were standing there with Ron's copy. All of them waiting around for him to arrive, once he came within view, all of them set their sights upon Ron, even the copy looked at Ron with a smile that Ron had only ten minutes ago, but seemed lost to the original.

"Hey, Ron, you son-of-a-bitch." The Ron copy smiled at him, "Everything go alright?"

"Yeah." The original Ron smiled despite the worries he had inside, "Went just fine."

"You don't sound very happy about it." The Ron copy said

"I just got a lot on my mind, right now." The original Ron stated as he raised his hand over the head of his copy and began to pull the code away from the person that they had used. Unlike the encounter with the Smith Army, it was quicker; the visage of Ron Stoppable seemed to be like colored smoke that retained some of Ron's features, but were slowly disappearing. Then the smoke that was the Ron copy's looks blew away like sand in the wind, and all that was left was that guard that Ron had borrowed.

"Hey, what happened?" The guard asked.

"You were on your way back inside." Ron stated flatly.

The guard looked at Ron, Morpheus, and Ghost very fearfully as if he was still trying to grasp what exactly had happened to him. The last thing that he remembered was asking Ron for a light. Standing there, he followed Ron's advice and headed back inside to join his comrades, trying, on his way, to come up with a good excuse for where he had been. As the guard headed back into the building, Ron, Morpheus, and Ghost were left to discuss what Ron had found out.

"How did it go?" Morpheus had asked Ron as the three of them got to the doors of the car.

"It's big." Ron said as they opened the doors, his voice sounding very ominous as if he himself was the one making the prophecies, "its _way…big…_"

With that, all three of them got in the car and drove away from the building. Not a single one of them spoke at all on the way to their exit. The ride was deathly quiet, Morpheus and Ghost did want to ask Ron what was going on, but then they both silently thought that it was best to leave Ron alone about it. He already had enough to deal with for one day, especially with that day of all days; they needed to get Ron back to the real world, for a very important date.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

In the dock of Neo Zion, the Nebuchadnezzar Two came to a sloppy landing on the platform. Unlike most of Link's landings where it was just smooth sailing over the concrete and an easy touchdown, this landing was very hurried. The rushing was even more evident in that the gangplank had been lowered before the ship had really touched down, and, like the Neb Two, it didn't come down softly to the concrete, rather it slammed down as if it was being dropped onto the hard concrete surface. As the Neb Two had landed, and the gangplank dropped, the men of the Neb Two were rushing out, they weren't even waiting for the gangplank to come down completely they just jumped over it.

There were Morpheus, Ghost, Link, and Ron rushing down the concrete runway to the elevator. All four of them were dressed in ceremonial robes. Morpheus' was similar to what he usually wore to the parties in Neo Zion, just a regular pair of pants and a sleeveless open robe that exposed his arms. Ghost could have been Morpheus' twin except he wore a torn, short sleeve shirt under his outfit. Link's wasn't anything special, just a fancier version of what he usually wore: his shirt, pants, and boots. Ron, on the other hand, seemed to be the fanciest of them all: a set of pants and a robe that came down to his ankles, which he was desperately trying to get on as he was rushing to meet up with his friends. Yet, what made his so vastly different from the others was that it was purely white like fresh linen. As Ron continued to struggle to put on his robes, he finally called out to his friends and shipmates.

"Hey!" He called, then said nervously putting one arm into his robe's sleeve, "It's not like they're gonna start without me, is it?"

Morpheus was quick in his response to Ron, but still retained his calmly solemn tone in the face of rushing, "Would you like to explain to Kimberly and Niobe why you were late?"

Ron pursed his lips as he thought about the very prospect of telling Kim of what had happened in the last couple of hours while he was in the Matrix when he was supposed to be getting ready for the biggest day of their lives.

"Point taken." He nodded as he slipped the other arm into his robe, "Let's bolt!"

With that Ron dashed down the concrete runway to the elevator to meet up with Morpheus, Link, and Ghost who were waiting for the elevator to come up. It was like this whenever they were in a rush, everything seemed so slow, except the time, which would fly by.

"_Get me to the church on time._" Link started to giggle as he began to sing that one line to himself.

"I'm sure we could do without the reminder, Link." Ghost said with forceful sarcasm.

The elevator finally came and all four of them had finally situated themselves into their robes. If there were ever two things that Ron hated more, it was being in a hurry and then having to wait. Thinking about it while the elevator made its descent, Ron had spent most of his life doing one or the other. It was because this day was so important that Ron actually began tapping his foot against the elevator floor.

As the tension about the situation grew with each floor that the elevator past, he began wrapping a thin blue ribbon around his left arm. It was long enough to that he could tie his hands together with he so chose, but he knew it was that length for a reason. He held the ribbon while it dangled and coiled at his tapping and nervous foot. His mind began to wander and think about the implications of it, but then again Ron was never one to really think very much, still that was before he was released from the Matrix.

He was glad that he was standing at the back of the elevator or his friends and crewmates would have caught him smiling. He smiled because so much had changed, and what made him smile even more was that he couldn't have gone through any of it without her.

"Kim." Ron softly uttered

"Did you say something, Ron?" Morpheus quickly asked as he turned around to look at Ron.

Ron looked up and brought himself back to reality, "Nothing." Ron quickly stated, trying to cover up his utterance.

Morpheus did want to say something to Ron, as if he wanted to offer some kind of fatherly advice. It was because of that look on Ron's face; he had seen that look on his face before. It was during that first visit to the Oracle that Ron had that look of subtle defeated depression. Before Morpheus could even open his mouth, the elevator dinged to their floor, and seeing that they had arrived, the quartet readied themselves to dash like Olympic runners waiting for the starting gunshot. The doors were only opened slightly when Morpheus, Link, Ghost, and Ron squeezed out and dashed over the bridge from the elevator to the temple.

The four of them headed to the temple with the long of their robes waving behind them like flags in a morning breeze as they rushed. They finally reached the opening of the Temple where the metal catwalk met with the solid, sandy floor, and where they were met by the edge of a crowd. That's when they saw that the temple was filled to overflowing with freed humans as well as born free humans. All of them from Neo Zion and perhaps some of them from the different human cities across the face of the Earth, each one of them standing shoulder to shoulder and elbow to elbow looking towards the high altar where Councilor Hamann stood. With that, the four of them split up. Morpheus and Ghost went with Ron up to the rock altar where Councilor Hamann stood, while Link merged with the crowd to meet up with his wife. At the altar, Ron made sure that his ribbon was still secure on his arm as he took his place at Councilor Hamann's left side, while Morpheus stood to Ron's left side with Ghost at Morpheus' left as well. At the other side, there was the Maid of Honor; Monique – who was also called "Pons". After all, her Matrix name did mean 'bridge', and she was that bridge between Ron and Kim.

"Am I late?" Ron asked Councilor Hamann while checking over his ribbon.

"Not at all, son." Hamann smiled at Ron as he answered his question, knowing that Ron had needed to rush to get here. As Ron was getting ready, Morpheus was issuing some orders to Ghost. He had surveyed the crowd behind Ron and saw the face of Joshua "Ares" Mankey who was more or less half a football field away from the altar. Morpheus then whispered to Ghost, "If Joshua bats an eyelash; you have my permission to deal with him how you see fit."

"Got it, sir." Ghost answered back quietly.

The two men looked back to the altar, seeing Councilor Hamann smile once again.

"It seems that you're right on time, Ronald." He said as his gaze moved to the far end of the temple, near its opening. As he looked, Ron, Morpheus, and Ghost followed his glance in that direction, along with the thousands of other men, women, and children who looked.

Ron "Neo" Stoppable gulped when he saw, at the opening of the temple, Mister and Misses Possible both dressed in their best ceremonial robes, which came down to their ankles, but were open enough to deal with the heat from the volcanic vents inside the temple. Standing between them, was _she_: Kim "Angel" Possible, who dressed the most elegant white gown that anyone inside Neo Zion had ever seen. She even had a small veil covering her face but was still sheer enough to see her face, and on her left arm was a ribbon much like what Ron had except it was red and it too dangled and coiled at her feet.

In that gown, in the light of the temple, and with the music of the familiar march playing, she was led down through the crowd, which began to part down the center as if Kim Possible was a princess that commanded the respect of all those in the temple. She seemed luminous with a sort of ethereal grace. Every eye was upon her as she glided down through the temple and towards the altar, and despite how cliché it may have sounded in retrospect; she seemed to glow like some kind of angel. A true double meaning, her Matrix name and the way she looked in that gown.

With each step that Kim took towards the altar, the butterflies in Ron's stomach multiplied a dozen times over. Yet, he kept looking at Kim's face and seeing how happy she was, even more so were her parents who had such tears of joy in their eyes that they were desperately trying to hold back.

They were only a few steps away from the altar when Ron took a very deep breath to try to try and calm his flip-flopping stomach. The three Possible family members stopped and looked towards Councilor Hamann who spoke loud enough so that his voice would echo from the back wall to the others in the temple.

"Who gives this woman away?" He asked loudly, his voice echoing against the rocky walls.

"H…her mother…" Mister Possible sniffled as a tear of joy ran down his face, he then recomposed himself, "And I."

After Mister Possible completed that ceremonial statement, the Councilor, who acted as the ceremony minister, nodded in his acknowledgement to the Possible Parents. Seeing the nod from the councilor, Mister Possible turned to his daughter, looked at her sweet, young face through the veil before he leaned over, kissed her cheek, and turned to take his place in the crowd. Then Misses Possible did the same, yet it was so much harder for her to do, to let go of her daughter's hand, perhaps it was because she was her mother or that Kim was her only daughter. Either way, Misses Possible took a little longer to let go of Kim's hand, but as she did, she reached over and held her daughter while she kissed her cheek. She then turned and went to join Mister Possible in the crowd as the ceremony began.

Kim had watched her mother to go to her father's side where she quietly wept into his shoulder. She did feel sad for her parents, but at the same time she felt so happy for the day, it was the kind of day that so many girls and women dreamt about. Ironically enough, it wasn't exactly something that had crossed Kim's mind in her own childhood; perhaps she wasn't 'girly' enough for that. She smiled as she turned to face Ron, expecting to see a certain amount of happiness in his eyes, but instead she saw immense worry in his chocolate orbs. Her suspicions ran high because she knew that kind of look. It was the same look he had when it was discovered that he only had seven months left to live. She approached him.

"What's wrong?" Kim mouthed to Ron, hoping he would get the message from the motion of her lips.

"We'll talk later." Ron quietly replied as he and Kim turned toward Councilor Hamann.

The councilor looked at Ron and Kim and smiled to see such love embodied in such great youth. He looked up to the crowd of people within the temple and started the ceremony.

"Before we go further," Hamann began as his voice echoed once again, "Is there any person here who has reason that these two young people should not become one, speak now…or forever hold your peace."

In the silence that followed, those at the altar looked to the crowd to see if anyone would have reason to stop the wedding. Though Morpheus and Ghost knew who would and had their eyes set upon him. Josh "Ares" Mankey was making his way quietly through the crowd, like a lion through the tall grass of the savannah. Neither Morpheus nor Ghost moved in to stop him, because also moving among the crowd and coming to intercept Josh was Link. The two men at the altar smiled thinking that Link had a similar idea to what they had. They waited for a full ten seconds when Josh was about to pounce at the altar, Link came in and quickly shouted as he jumped, bringing his leg around to hit Josh.

"Dead head!" He yelled as his foot slammed against Josh's head sending the teen down to the floor of the temple like a dropped sandbag from a theater rafter. Link threw Josh over his shoulder and said to everyone in the temple, "As you were, people."

"Very well then…" Hamann blinked in his confusion about what had just transpired, but he wasn't about to let that stop the ceremony, as Link had carried Josh away, he continued on, "Are there any others?"

"YOU KIDDIN' ME, MAN?" A voice called out, and instantly everyone in the temple looked to find that the one who voiced his opinion about the ceremony belonged to Brick "Tater Salad" Flagg, "GO TAME THAT WILD CAT, RONNIE-BOY!"

The laughter came in one solid wave and echoed several times over through the temple. It was true that everyone agreed with Brick in their own way, after all, the talk around the most gossip tables was that Ron had better marry Kim before she knocked him out and did it for him. It was no secret how much they cared for each other. With the laughter dying down, all eyes went back to Councilor Hamann, who had his own laugh about Brick's comment as he looked at the blushing Kim and Ron.

"I understand you both wrote your own vows, correct?" The councilor asked of the bride and groom.

Kim was the one to go first; she took a very deep breath to try to calm her stomach. She had practiced her little vow/speech in private, but it seemed so much harder to do when not only the man she loved was in front of her, but all of Neo Zion was watching as well. She slowly released her deep breath as she looked into Ron's eyes, hoping that she wouldn't break her contact with them as she spoke her words of the heart.

"Ron…" She began, "…I'm not sure where to even begin with telling you just how much you mean to me…you asked a question to me a few days ago, during a fight of all things …if… if you never became the one, would I have ever noticed you? The answer…whether you believe it or not…is yes…_I would've_. I've…I've noticed you for sometime, Ron, but never would have thought for a second that you would have thought of me as more than your best friend or partner…"

"But then again…it was a miracle you thought of me as even that, especially after how I had treated you. I've always noticed you, Ron…I…I just never realized it until we were freed. You've been by my side from day one. You were with me on my first mission and every mission afterwards. I…I…never could do it without you, Ron, and I doubt I could go on without you by my side. I love you, Ron…always have…and always will."

Kim had to swallow at that point. Even though she had promised herself that she wouldn't lose her self-control, she already had when she felt a single tear leak out and slide down her chin. She reached up underneath her veil to brush away the tear and waited to hear the vow that Ron had prepared for their wedding.

Ron, on the other hand, felt such a warm wave coming over him as if Kim's words were a warm blanket that he had longed for, for such a very long time. He looked to Councilor Hamann to bring himself out of the trance he was in.

"My turn, huh?" Ron asked. He looked at the 'preacher', then to Kim, and then to the people looking at him wondering what great words Ron would say to his soon-to-be-wife. He, like Kim, took a deep breath before starting, "Here goes…I…um…I've actually been practicing this before I even proposed, Kim. You see…I had a hard time trying to find the right words to tell you. But I had found them in a song, and I'm just thankful that the guys in the band know about it."

Ron looked towards the band that was stationed near the altar at the far left part of the cave. As he looked, they were holding up their instruments, which told him they were ready. Ron reached up and cupped his hands to call to them:

"Alright guys!" He called to the band, "Start it up!"

The band started up with a small harp solo as Ron turned back to Kim and cleared his throat before he began to sing.

"_From this moment, life has begun  
From this moment, you are the one   
Right beside you is where I belong  
From this moment on"_

Ron's voice was so solemn when he was singing those words with closed eyes, hoping that the words in that song would come out the way he imagined to the ears of Kim and all those attending the wedding.

"_From this moment, I have been blessed  
I live only for your happiness   
And for your love, I'd give my last breath  
From this moment on_

_I give my hand to you with all my heart  
Can't wait to live my life with you, can't wait to start  
You and I will never be apart  
My dreams came true because of you_

_From this moment as long as I live  
I will love you, I promise you this   
There is nothing I wouldn't give  
From this moment on"_

Ron had paused for the instrumental break where the guitar was in the lead, the makeshift orchestra backing it up, and the drums moving the song. Kim felt her entire skin rise in goose pimples as the chills ran up and down her spine like the strings of a harp being played. She smiled with such great love and joy at Ron that she could feel her own body begin to tremble with the slight sobs of happiness that she made. She watched as Ron never opened his eyes during the whole instrumental break, but as it was coming to a close, he had opened his eyes to look at Kim. To see her smile and weep from her own happiness, he smiled back as he opened his mouth to finish the song.

"_You're the reason I believe in love  
And you're the answer to my prayers from up above  
All we need is just the two of us  
My dreams came true because of you_

_From this moment as long as I live  
I will love you, I promise you this  
There is nothing I wouldn't give  
From this moment  
I will love you as long as I live  
From this moment on"_

With the song ending, Ron reached out to Kim with his left hand, the one hand that had the blue ribbon tied around it. Kim did the same as she reached out to take Ron's hand with her left arm that had that red ribbon on it. The song came down to a very slow halt as Kim and Ron held each other. They looked like they were about to kiss, but they knew that it wasn't time for that, not just yet anyway.

"From now to eternity, _my KP._" Ron whispered as he held Kim's hand.

The bride and groom turned to Councilor Hamann who seemed so greatly happy for the two of them. They watched as he reached up to wipe away something from his eyes. He then cleared his throat before he turned to Kim.

"Kimberly." He said to her, "repeat after me: I, recite your full name."

"I, Kimberly Anne 'Angel' Possible." Kim announced, following the councilor's instructions.

"Do solemnly swear."

"Do solemnly swear."

"To love, honor, and cherish Ronald Stoppable as long as we both shall live."

"To love, honor, and cherish Ronald Stoppable as long as we both shall…" Kim stumbled over the words, remembering how long the Oracle said that Ron was supposed to live, "sh…_shall live._"

Hamann then turned to Ron, who looked at the councilor waiting for those words, "Ronald, repeat after me. I, recite your full name"

"I," Ron repeated, "Ronald Thomas 'Neo' Stoppable,"

"Do solemnly swear."

"Do solemnly swear."

"To love, honor, and cherish Kimberly Possible as long as we both shall live."

"To love, honor, and cherish Kimberly Possible as long as we both shall live." Ron made the last repeated statement with such pride and strength in his voice as if he was declaring it to God himself.

With the two ribbon-covered hands of Ron and Kim already holding each other, Hamann reached down for them, bringing them up to a leveled position like to ends of a bridge meeting each other at the middle. With them outstretched in such a position, the councilor began wrapping their ribbons around one another. He wrapped what was left of Ron's blue ribbon around Kim's arm as if the red and blue ribbons were snakes coiling into each other. With Ron's ribbon covering her arm, he then reached for Kim's red ribbon and wrapped it around Ron's arm. With the ribbons binding them together, the councilor looked to the men and women in the temple and made his blessing on the happy couple.

"Let this ribbon represent the bond between this man and this woman" He stated, his voice once again echoing through the temple, "May this union never be severed or strained, and remain strong even to the end of all things. And so, by the power vested in my by the Council of Zion, I now pronounce you…man…and wife…"

Kim and Ron turned to look at one another as Councilor Hamann said those words, the very thing that made them husband and wife. It seemed so unreal that they were finally married, and yet they felt so young at the same time. It had finally happened, or so they thought, before Hamann stepped in.

"Well, don't just stand there, son." He said laughingly at Ron, "Kiss your bride."

Ron needed no further encouragement, he reached out with both arms, the arm that was tied to Kim's by the ribbon presenting no problem, lifted her veil, and then grabbed her waist making she let out a high pitched squeal as she was lifted off her feet before Ron kissed her. In that moment, it was one of _the _most passionate kisses that Kim had ever received from Ron. It was the kind of kiss that drowned out the rest of the world that was applauding for them, applauding, cheering, hollering, and screaming for them.

They didn't even break the kiss when Councilor Hamann was trying to speak loudly over the crowd of cheering and noise.

"Ladies and Gentlemen! Brothers and Sisters!" He cried out to all those in the temple, "I present to you…_The Stoppables!"_

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Almost everyone in all of Neo Zion had turned out to watch the wedding of "The One" and "The Girl Who Can Do Anything". Everyone except one person. A woman who was just sad, alone and bitter, Instead of going down to the Temple to watch the wedding, she went to the Jack Room, where she had jacked herself in and loaded a program she constructed around one memory that she had.

She stood in the middle of the blank whiteness of the Construct while the program that she had designed was loading. All around her, she found herself back in a preschool playground, the very one from her early childhood. She walked through it, while all the playing children passed her without giving a single notice to her. She was like Ebenezer Scrooge being guided by the Ghost of Christmas Past as she approached a large oak tree that grew near the school building.

Her heart ached as she watched the children scatter across the playground and go to their favorite places, the swing set, the jungle gym, the monkey bars, but she, herself, walked over to the sandbox. There she found a pair of four-year-olds who were best friends since as far back as they could remember. Then again, at that age, it couldn't have been that long ago in the first place. There was a small freckle-faced boy with blonde hair and a brunette girl shyly holding his hand as they sat at the edge of the sandbox.

"Ronnie?" The brunette girl smiled at the blonde boy who was blushing brightly at her.

"Ahuh, Bon-bon?" The blonde boy replied as he squirmed his feet underneath the sand in the sandbox.

"My big sister is getting married." The brunette girl stated, her cheeks starting to blush, "When we get big, can we get married too, Ronnie?"

"Sure!" Ron stated with a smile of enthusiasm, "Um…what's _married_ mean?"

As the brunette girl blushed when Ron had asked his question, a voice of help came out of nowhere.

"Leave me alone!" A girl's trembling voice called from the old oak tree where three bullies had her pushed against it. She trembled in fear as two of the bullies were pulling on her red pigtails.

Bonnie blinked, and before she could gain a bearing on what was going on, Ron had gotten to his feet and ran quickly towards them. She couldn't hear what was said, but she watched as the bullies had turned on Ron. She had gotten to her feet in the sandbox, determined to save Ron from the bullies that were crowding around him near the jungle gym.

"I'm warning you!" Ron tried to scare the bullies, "I have an imaginary friend, he's huge…Rufus!"

Bonnie was about to dash over to the bullies to save Ron, but before she could even make the first step, someone had beaten her to it.

"Hey bullies!" A voice called out.

Bonnie looked to see that the red haired girl had grown a great deal of backbone in a matter of seconds. She had leapt up into the air as if she was lifted by a pair of wings. She came down on the bullies in a pose like something out of Jackie Chan movie, and as soon as she landed, the bullies scattered and ran right off the playground.

There were two Bonnie's at the Middleton Preschool playground in that memory, there was the young Bonnie who sat down at the edge of the sandbox as she watched the red hair girl with Ron. Standing next to her was the Bonnie that the young girl had become; the two of them looked at the red haired girl and Ron and felt such a pang of jealousy at them. It became thick as tar when the red haired girl went over to Ron and threw her arms around him in a wonderful hug. The older Bonnie wanted to hug her younger version, but then the environment around her changed as the program went to the next scene that she had programmed into it.

She found herself at the front steps of the preschool, where she found her younger version sitting there. The young Bon-Bon sat there on the cold concrete as if she was waiting for someone. The entire pre-school seemed empty, as if everyone there had already gone home. It was even more evident when the sun was casting out golden rays of sunset.

From out of the doors behind the young Bonnie, she hoped to see her friend, Ronnie coming out and they would walk home together, like they always did. Instead, her heart sunk once again when she found that it was just a blonde girl named Tara.

"Hey." She called out, "Have you seen Ronnie?"

Tara turned to look at Bonnie and said, "Yeah, I saw him walking home with Kimmie a 'lil while 'go."

"Oh…" Bonnie replied as she set her elbows upon her thighs, her face into her hands and looked down at the concrete. She didn't see Tara shrugging at her as she walked her own way back home. As the young Bonnie sat there upon the concrete steps, the older Bonnie came over and sat down beside her. The pain she felt was unbearable; it was a memory that Bonnie had harbored all her life.

"He…" The young Bonnie cried, "…he…forgot me…he _really_…forgot me…"

The cries that the young Bonnie weren't loud like those of any young child; they were soft, withheld, and quiet whimpers as the tears soaked into her little dress and fell to the cold concrete below her.

As the young Bonnie wept, the older Bonnie took her fist and slammed it against the concrete, her rage numbing out the pain that she caused herself. She didn't care how much her hand hurt; it was nothing to the years of pain that she had suffered because of that one day. Ron was her best friend first, and that red-headed bitch, Kim Possible, took him away from her. Even though Bonnie had only known Ron for a short time in that Preschool, she couldn't help but feel that she had known Ron from somewhere else, as if they knew each other before they were born.

"Bastards…" The older Bonnie wept, as she numbed the pain of her hand out with the pain she'd had since she was the little girl who was sitting beside her, "They…deserve each other…I hate them…_I hate them both!_"

The two Bonnies sat upon the concrete steps of Middleton Preschool, their knees pulled close to their chests and their tears flowing from their eyes like miniature waterfalls. They allowed their grief to silently flow from themselves as the sun sank into the west, bringing about not only night, but the anger, sorrow, and bitterness that filled the young Bonnie, which grew into the bitchy, holier-than thou, alpha-female attitude that the older Bonnie had.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Nightfall had come to the city of Neo Zion; all the people had already gone back to their homes and were sleeping, alone or with their wives or girlfriends, in both senses of the term. That was certainly true of the newlyweds Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable. The two of them were back at the apartment that they were already sharing, but the only thing that had changed since they got that place was that they started sleeping in the same bed. It was a good thing that their beds were so big; it was as if Morpheus and the Possible parents had seen this coming a mile away and were preparing for it.

As they were spooning each other in bed, it was weird to Ron to think of Kim as his wife, and, he her husband. He just couldn't get his mind around the bizarreness of it all, that he was married, just like a lot of adults. Then again, being married to Kim Possible, the girl who can do anything and his best friend seemed to make it less bizarre. It wasn't like they weren't having sex before they were married, but there was something about it being their wedding night that seemed to make this marathon session more passionate, more… special. Though there was one reason why the two of them wore white, it wasn't necessarily a sexual thing. It was more of a matter of the heart, that they were virgins to each other in the matter of the heart. So, that night, in their apartment, they made love in the most endearing and passionate way they ever could, although it came to a point where Ron couldn't perform anymore, after all the spirit was willing but the flesh was spongy. That was when Kim and Ron fell asleep in each other's arms.

Ron cuddled Kim closer to him, and that was when he felt something from Kim before he heard it;

"I love you, Ronnie." Kim whispered as she opened her eyes facing her husband.

"Did I wake you, Kim?" Ron asked, concerned that he had disturbed his wife.

"No." Kim smiled as she shook her head slightly, "I was never asleep. I was just…sort of…basking in the moment."

Ron squeezed Kim closer and tighter, while she licked her husband's earlobes and then whispered, "We're going to prove her wrong."

"Hmmm?" Ron asked in confusion about what Kim meant.

"We've beaten everything we've come across so far." Kim explained to Ron, making firm eye contact with him, "We did things people thought were impossible, even for my parents, who are the worlds biggest optimists. We can beat this, Ron, my love. Just like everything else and we'll be together…we'll grow _old_ together…and have kids…and all that other married stuff."

Ron couldn't help but giggle through his nose, before he looked at Kim and asked, "Married stuff? And just how many kids were you planning on?"

"Hmm." Kim smiled with cat-like intent as she teased Ron, "I don't know…but I'm used to having a full house. So you've got your work cut out for you, big boy…" She smiled as she ran her fingers down Ron's bare chest, over his tightly formed abs, and towards his crotch. Ron was about to stop Kim's hand, but that was when Kim threw back the sheets and climbed on top of Ron, pinning his arms down to the bed in their little, naked, wrestling match.

"Is that a challenge?" Ron asked, looking up at Kim, gazing at the beauty of her, her face, her hair, and her body. He then rolled over and reversed their positions so that Kim was now pinned, his pelvis already up against Kim's, "Maybe we should get to work on that…that is _if…you're ready, Kimmie-love._"

Kim looked up at Ron and gave him a very coy smile, the kind of smile that just said _come and get me_, before she said, _"_Whatever comes…_comes_…and after all it _is_ our wedding night, right? But…Ron…promise me something first…"

"Anything, KP." Ron smiled, thinking that anything Kim asked of him wouldn't be all that hard to do; after all he was The One.

"Promise…" Kim started, but it was hard for her to get the rest out with the tears forming at the corners of her eyes. She looked away from Ron, thinking that she couldn't bring herself to ask it of her husband.

That was when Ron reached down to Kim's chin and brought it back to face him. He then reached down and wiped away the tears from his wife's face.

"Hey, KP." Ron smiled, "It's like you said, we've beaten everything we've come across."

Kim smiled up at her husband as she finished what she was going to say, "Ron, promise me that you'll never leave me…"

Ron lowered himself down beside his wife, looked at her face, and pressed his lips against hers into a passionate kiss. He then broke the kiss and pulled back to look at his wife's face once again. He began to brush back her reddish ginger hair as if they were strands of the finest materials on Earth. He then brought his hand to Kim's cheek.

"I love you, Kim." Ron whispered, "As long as I got a say in it…I promise…as long as I'm able…I'll never leave you…ever..."

With that last vow on Ron's part, the two lovers embraced one another, kissed one another, and made love again and again as the hours of the night progressed on into morning.

To be continued…


	14. Upgraded Chapter 6

**The Kimmatrix: Matrix Upgraded**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and Turles**

**Chapter 6: Who Wants to Live Forever?**

"_Memory is not an instrument of exploring the past, but its theatre."_

- Walter Benjamin

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Twelve days had come and twelve days had gone. The skies over the Earth gradually became lighter and lighter allowing it to regain its sapphire color once again. It was by the eleventh day that all of the sky was like that of an overcast day, and even for that moment it seemed that all was well with the world, yet, in what was once called the Cradle of Human Civilization, where now resided the Machine City, Zero One Two; down in the lower levels where the six pods were stationed, the screen that read their status only had a little ways to go.

Alpha Unit Status:

Alpha Unit One: Reanimation Sequence ETC: 0 days 4 hours 12 minutes

Alpha Unit Two: Reanimation Sequence ETC: 0 days 1 hour 2 minutes

Alpha Unit Three: Reanimation Sequence ETC: Complete

Alpha Unit Four: Reanimation Sequence ETC: Complete

Alpha Unit Five: Reanimation Sequence ETC: Complete

Alpha Unit Six: Reanimation Sequence ETC: Complete

Alpha Units Final Activation Sequence Engaged…

110101100110100111001011011100101010110101

Ron "Neo" Stoppable sighed as he stared at the ceiling of his and Kim's bedroom. He knew that the day had come for him; it was like all those mornings when he woke up on days of tests for school: he would awaken feeling nervous, nauseous, and scared out of his mind. The only difference, as he thought about it, at least with the tests in school, he had a fairly good idea about the outcome since he was so lousy at written tests. The fight that was before him seemed impossible especially since there were lives on the line, human flesh and blood on the line and in his hands, even the lives of friends, crewmates, and most of all, the woman that he loved, his wife: Kim Possible.

Ron turned his head slightly to his left to see Kim sleeping so very soundly; even in her sleep she had a smile on her face. She was so blissfully happy; Ron had never seen Kim that happy, not in a long time. Still, like the merry-go-round that his mind had become, he came back to the day at hand; the day that both the Oracle as well as the Architect had said was coming. Ron took another deep breath, feeling that he needed to go somewhere to think. He turned his head back to his wife, leaned over, and brushed back a few strands of her fiery red hair before laying a feather light kiss on her cheek. He then climbed out of bed that he and Kim had come to share for over a week (and what a week it was). Silently, he got himself dressed before he walked out of the apartment.

It was still early morning, must have been at least three in the morning by Ron's guess. He came to the balcony and looked up towards the ceiling of the apartment complex of Neo Zion. With all the little walkway lights and the thick clouds of moisture hanging at different levels, it looked like an underground night sky. It was bizarre how much like the stars that the lights of other apartments were when all of Zion was at least five miles below the surface of the Earth.

Ron had changed his gaze from the 'underground night sky' to a single yellowish light at the bottom floor of the apartment complex. It was the light of the statue of Neo. Ron went down to that bottom floor to look at the statue.

He walked up to it, gazing at the quality of its craftsmanship, how the light made it look real and unreal at the same time, and how heroic this man named Neo looked. Ron came closer to the statue, never giving one look at anything else, not the plaque, or the rest of the statue itself, just the face.

"Why...why me?" Ron pleaded with the statue, half-hoping that the statue would come to life to give Ron some kind of God-sent advice, "What would you do in this situation, Neo? I'm no hero…_I never was_…I'm a sidekick…and a damn good one too! Sidekicks aren't supposed to save the world…I'm no good at this sort of thing…I know that…that if I go…I'm just going to screw it all up. I just want you to know that I…I never wanted to be a hero…I…I just wanted to be…KP's sidekick…"

Ron gave a sharp sniffle as he turned his gaze downward to the plaque at the base of Neo's statue:

_Neo_

_The One who ended the War of Man and Machines_

"_I dipped into the future as far as the eye can see and saw a vision of the world and all the wonder that it would be."_

_- Lord Alfred Tennyson_

The tears were welling up in Ron's eyes when the true weight of the situation and its consequences started to come down upon him.

"No, you were a terrible sidekick." A voice corrected Ron.

The shock of another voice was nearly enough to send Ron tumbling over the rail and head first into Neo's plaque. But Ron simply turned to see who was standing there; which ended up being none other than his dear and loving wife, Kim Possible. She was standing as if she had been there the whole time with her arms crossed over her chest. Ron took in the comment knowing that it was definitely Kim who had made the correction to Ron's rant.

"Figures…" Ron signed as he shook his head about the comment and his shoulders drooped, "Can't even be a sidekick right…"

"Got that right." Kim snorted, but then smirked at her husband, who was looking down at the floor in such embarrassed shame. She blew a strand of her red hair out of her face when she approached Ron, "Sidekicks listen to what the hero says no matter what. If the hero tells the sidekick to jump, then the sidekick is supposed to ask how high. To the sidekick, the hero is always right…no matter what, and will follow the hero no matter what. You're no sidekick, Ron…you never were…" Kim walked up and placed a gentle hand on Ron's shoulder, "A partner doesn't always listen to the hero. A partner will point out when the hero is wrong, argue, or even smack the hero up side the head when she's about to do something stupid. Just like you've always done, and also…you may never 've wanted to be a hero, but you've always been a hero to at least one person."

Ron looked up at Kim's green eyes before she leaned in to kiss him lightly upon his lips. As she pulled back, Ron smiled slightly at her.

"I thought the sappy stuff ended after the wedding…" He joked lightly at his wife.

"That's only sometimes." Kim shrugged in her response to Ron's little crack, but then she gave Ron a look that he knew all too well; he knew what the next question was that Kim was about to ask.

"You going to tell me what was said when you visited the Architect last week?" Kim had asked, scowling at Ron who had only let out a frustrated sigh as he looked away from Kim and down at the floor once again.

"Ron…" Kim demanded Ron's attention, "Talk to me please. Does it have to do with what the Oracle told you about what's going to happen, today?"

Ron looked sharply at Kim with surprise as if asking how she knew.

"Don't look so surprised." Kim answered Ron's expression, "I've kept up with the date just as well as, if not more so than you."

"I…" Ron stammered, trying to avoid eye contact with his wife, "I just…don't want you…to worry…"

"Your not sleeping well and avoiding talking to me about it _is_ what's worrying me." Kim stated exasperatedly, "Why won't you tell me?"

Ron was about to answer or at least attempt an answer when he looked at the face of his dear wife and felt his will start to shake. Kim Possible had her shoulders bunched up, her lower lip pursed out and her eyes looking at Ron so pitifully. It was her signature look, the Kim Possible "Puppy Dog Pout".

"Now that should be illegal…" Ron stated, his defense lowering from his wife's secret weapon.

"Please tell me…if you love me, you'll tell me." Kim stated, her voice sounding like a mock version of weeping as her lower lip began to tremble by her will alone.

"Okay, okay." Ron laughed as he threw his arm over his eyes to shield him from his wife's secret weapon, "Just lose the pout, okay?"

"Booyah." Kim smiled in her triumph of finally getting her husband to crack, "Talk, please."

Ron lowered his arm and looked at Kim with a strict seriousness, "Remember the sentinel army that the _Mad Dog_ spotted last week?" Ron asked.

Kim gave him a nervous nod.

"Well," Ron explained, "The Architect gave me a challenge…"

"What _kind_ of challenge?" Kim asked, suddenly starting to regret forcing her husband to reveal the information that she selfishly wanted to know.

"Today…" Ron explained, "at six in the evening…six fighters chosen by the head machine dude…will be waiting for me inside the Matrix. If I decide to go, I'll log in from the Jack Room here in Neo Zion and fight them. If I win, the Sentinel Army will be dismantled and the people connected to the Matrix will be released. If I lose the sentinels will attack and destroy Neo Zion as well as all of the human cities on the surface, but they'll let those who are still plugged in live. If I just plain don't show up, they'll shutdown the Matrix without freeing the people inside, and release the sentinels."

Ron had tried his best to repeat what the Architect had told him, but, with something so monstrous on his shoulders, it was hard to forget any details about it. As Ron finished up his explanation of it, he saw how much his wife's face had paled as if she had been scared right down to her very core.

"Its okay, Kim" Ron tried to reassure as he pulled Kim into a hug and held her there very gently, "I'm the One, remember? They'll need six thousand to top me."

"I just got a bad feeling, Ron." Kim sighed into Ron's shoulder, while she wrapped her arms around his waist, "Remember…remember your promise."

"I'm not going anywhere Kim." Ron whispered into her ear. "Come on, I've got a big day ahead…saving the world and all…so let's try to get some sleep, okay?"

Kim didn't say a word during the whole walk from Neo's statue back to their apartment. Even though neither said a word to each other, it did seem that the weight of what was to come was on both their shoulders.

110101100110100111001011011100101010110101

The day had arrived, and the time was drawing close; it must have been ten minutes to six o'clock when Kim Possible and her husband Ron Stoppable walked hand in hand into the Jack Room of Neo Zion. It was rather bizarre to an extent since when Kim and Ron had arrived; there were some good people there waiting for them. They stood around the nearest Jack Chair just to the right of the entry way. There was Morpheus, Niobe, Mister 'Napster' Possible, Misses 'Kazaa' Possible, Ghost, and Link, who sat at his operations station simply waiting. Seeing the people who were there waiting for them, Kim and Ron headed in.

The whole situation seemed to have that same feeling as a farewell party or a send-off party before someone was to get on a plane. Even Morpheus seemed to add to that when he looked at Ron with such seriousness similar to how a doctor looks at a patient when they're going to give some very bad news.

"It's time, Ronald." Morpheus stated.

Ron gulped as he nodded, looking towards the Jack Chair that seemed to have an unusual kind of glow to it. As if the chair itself knew that today was a very big day with such great ramifications attached to it. In a way, the chair seemed welcoming despite how grimy it was with its torn upholstery and odd metal parts. It was there in the center of the circle of friends and family wanting Ron to use it, saying 'It's alright Ron; I'll help you get through this."

"Well…" Ron shrugged, looking at everyone around the room, "I guess its ass kickin' time, huh?" He smiled weakly before looking back at the welcoming Jack Chair, "Here goes nothing…"

"Stop." Kim uttered as Ron took his first step to the chair,

"Kim?" Ron asked, turning to look at his wife,

"Don't go…I'm just…just getting a really bad vibe about this, Ron." Kim said, shaking her head and avoiding eye contact with her husband, "It's a trap…I just know it…Ron…let's…let's get a ship and go away…far away from Neo Zion, from the Matrix, from everything."

"Kim!" Her parents breathed, very shocked by their daughters' alternative.

"No." Ron said to his in-laws, before he looked back at his wife, Kim. He smiled as he approached her and set his hands upon her shoulders, "Kim, if you were in my shoes right now…what would you do?"

Kim said nothing.

"If you knew…" Ron tried to justify what he was doing, "that if you thought you could save lives that would be lost if you did nothing, would you fight, KP?" He reached up, cupped Kim's cheeks, and looked her straight in the eye, "Or would you run away…and live with the knowledge that you could have made a difference for the rest of your life, would you? I'd like to think that no matter how much you loved me, no matter how much I begged you not to, and no matter how much it hurt to leave me behind to fight alone, you would still go…am I right?"

"…Damn you…" Kim cried as her tears ran over Ron's cupped hands.

"I also would like to believe you'd like me to be right there beside you on the outside holding your hand…" Ron assured as he wiped away Kim's tears

"Ne…never…" Kim whimpered and sniffed slightly, "Never thought…you could hate…and love someone so much at the exact same time." She reached up to wipe away the last of her tears, "I'll be waiting for you to win, Ron…I'll be holding your hand…"

Without looking down, Ron and Kim's hands had interlocked with one another and they looked towards the Jack Chair. Taking a deep breath, they headed to it as if it was their own leap of faith. Kim stood at the side of the Jack Chair while Ron laid back in it allowing Ghost and Morpheus to strap him in, though Kim was the one holding the last piece, the long jack that would plug into the back of Ron's head. she led it in with her free hand while the other still held her husband's hand.

Ron looked up at his loving wife and smiled, "I love you, KP."  
"I love you too, Ron." Kim replied as she leaned down to give Ron a great, long, and passionate kiss as if it was the last pleasure he would have on Earth. Kim had pulled back and whispered, "I'll be right here beside you…"

Ron laid his head back into the Jack Chair as Kim took the jack and slipped it into the back of Ron's head instantly sending him into that Matrix dream-state, while he was waiting in the construct to get into the Matrix itself.

Kim had kept her promise; she stayed by her husband's side holding his hand, while her mother and father brought her a small chair to sit down in. Over at the operator's station, Link was looking at the screens with the Matrix code flowing downward like rain.

"Okay." Link said prepping himself for whatever was about to happen, "He's in right now."

"What about these six he's supposed to fight?" Mister 'Napster' Possible asked.

"His opponents…" Link stated before he trailed off. He stared at the screen as if somewhere in the green unreadable text he saw the face of the devil himself. That much was evident when he let out a long whisper, "shhhhiiiiiiiiit."

The others, except Kim, had gathered around Link's station to see what it was that had scared him so much. They knew that it must have been something horrendous because, despite Link's dark complexion, they could swear that his face had turned pale. Morpheus was the first to gauge what was happening, and he too could feel the blood draining away from his face.

"Morpheus?" Niobe asked of her husband as she placed her hand on his shoulder, "What's wrong?"

Morpheus couldn't answer; his throat had gone completely dry from his fear.

"What _is _it?" Kim had asked more forcefully than Niobe, but still refusing to leave Ron's side.

"Neo…" Morpheus wheezed.

110101100110100111001011011100101010110101

Ron had found himself back in his old hometown of Middleton, Colorado. He had told Link the day before that he wanted to be loaded to his hometown. Ron felt in the back of his mind that if he would bit the dust on that particular day, he'd rather be back at the place where he and Kim had met.

Ron had been loaded into the industrial part of the town with the warehouses and power stations, but when he came out to the street, Ron couldn't find a single soul around. It struck him as pretty frightening because, in a city that is that empty, more than likely, zombies were sure to be involved. He then brought himself to the matter at hand when Rufus, who was wriggling in his pocket, handed him his cell phone.

"Thanks, Rufus." Ron smiled as he dialed the number for the operator. The phone rang and he thought he heard the line pick up at the other end, "Operator? Hello? Link?"

He slipped the phone back into his pocket, while Rufus had climbed out and perched on his shoulder. The fear in the air was so thick that it made Rufus shiver to his small skeleton.

"I know, Rufus." Ron said to his hairless friend, "Maybe KP's bad feeling wasn't…just a bad feeling after all."

Rufus began to chirp and shake nervously as he scurried back into Ron's pocket only allowing his beady little eyes to peek out of it. Ron then reached into the pocket where he was hiding and looked at him as he sat in the palm of his hand. The little mole rat looked up at him with those black glassy eyes that seemed to try and imitate Kim's Puppy Dog Pout.

""We've been through a lot, buddy." Ron began, "But I'm afraid on this one I have to go alone, please understand that this fight could get really nasty and I don't want to see you hurt."

Rufus only nodded as Ron had set him down upon the concrete steps of the warehouse.

"Just find a safe place, buddy." Ron instructed.

"Got it…" Rufus squeaked as he scurried away.

"Now to find my opponents." Ron said to himself as he flew up to the skies over Middleton. Everything seemed so oddly beautiful when he looked at it from such a high vantage point. At that point, Ron had spotted something out of the corner of his eye and he zoomed down to the ground. Upon his landing, he found himself back at Middleton Preschool. Of course, like everywhere else in the city, it was empty, completely devoid of people or even children on the playground. Only, the ideas of why there were no people anywhere didn't matter to Ron. It was because of the place that he had come to, that Preschool playground; he looked at it from behind the chain link fence and had some fond memories.

"This is where it had all started." Ron said to himself as if he was conducting his own memories before his great fight began. As he looked to that place between that great Oak tree and the jungle gym, he thought about that first time that Kim had saved him. Then again, as Ron thought about it, it was the first time that Ron was Kim's distraction to those bullies. It wasn't that first mission with the eccentric collector and his Cuddle Buddies; it was that day on the playground when they not only became friends but partners.

The silence that Ron was in was quickly broken sharply when a voice called out to him:

"Hello, Ron."

Ron's heart had rocketed its way to his throat when he instantly recognized it. The voice was the same one that he had only heard in his dreams, but what made it even more fearful was that the voice wasn't old or drawn out like that which belonged to Agent Smith. That voice belonged to another.

He turned his whole body around from the chain linked fence to see who…or what was there. He looked from behind his sunglasses but had to blink, even pull his sunglasses off to make sure that it wasn't some kind of error in the Matrix or in his own vision. He was confronted by…him…the man that Morpheus had shown to him, the one with the statue in Neo Zion, and the one who had ended the war of man and machines: Neo.

After getting over seeing this man, alive and face to face, his eyes had looked to see five other people gathering in the empty street around Middleton Preschool.

From what Ron could see, there were four men and one woman. All of them were wearing black or at least a very dark color that came close to black. The first man that Ron laid eyes upon was definitely a Spanish man with his dark hair that came down over his face, dark eyes, and tanned skin. He wore a deep gray shirt that bordered upon black with a short suit jacket and black pants.

The second man that Ron saw behind Neo was a tall man who had a very thin face, thinning hair with widow's peaks on his head. Set upon his narrow face was a pair of thin framed and red mirror lens oval sunglasses. He wore a very deep crimson suit with no tie and it seemed to change to black with the folds in the cloth. While he wore black suit pants along with his long black trench coat that swished as he moved along showing off its deep red lining.

Next to the Tall man of Red, was a boy a little older than Ron, who had hair as darkly black as the Spanish Man of Gray, he also wore a pair of sunglasses that looked like a metallic and reflective green. This young boy also had a very tightly worn suit. A black suit jacket that came down to his knees that gave him a very hourglass look while his suit shirt was a deep green that also turned black in the deepest crests of the folds. His tie was black but it had a pattern upon it that looked very similar to the Matrix code.

Next to the boy of Green was an older woman, she must have been around Misses Possible's age if Ron had guessed correctly. She had shoulder length dirty blonde hair that seemed very messy as if she had never combed it before. She wore something that was very unusual compared to the others, she wore a yellow body suit that was loose fitting but not too baggy and it had a black stripe going up the side from her ankles up to her shoulders. Like the others she too had sunglasses on, but hers were a yellowish chrome color set into its round-rectangular lenses.

The last man standing next to the Woman of Yellow was a man whose sunglasses, like the Boy of Green was a metallic blue color, his manner of dress was a coat that completely covered him down to his mid-thighs with a piece covering his front that had an odd hourglass shape to it with buttons along its two side edges, while his black pants took over for the rest of him.

Ron had then brought his attention back to Neo who was only an arms length away.

"Neo?" Ron had asked, feeling how dry his throat was, he cleared it to ask his next question, "I thought…that you were dead."

"Neo _is_ dead." The man who looked like Neo replied as he brought up the back of his left hand to show a green tattoo of the numbers zero-six that looked as if they came from an old computer monitor with how blocked it had looked, "I am _Alpha Six_….all of you…introduce yourselves."

"I was once called _Uno_." The Spanish Man of Gray stated, "But now I am called _Alpha One._"

"I am _Alpha Two_." The Tall Man of Red took over showing off a similar tattoo on the top of his left hand, "But they used to call me, _Slim._"

The Boy of Green took his cue, "I'm _Alpha Three._" He declared, "But my old name was, _Glitch._"

"Once upon a time," The Woman in Yellow said in an almost seductive tone, "I was known as _Innanna, _but now I'm _Alpha Four_."

"_Router_ was once my name." The Man of Blue had told, "But he is dead, now there is only _Alpha Five!_"

"You now know who we are…" Alpha Six stated as he looked down at Rom from his tall six foot two inch stature, "We did what we were supposed to do…_but you…_are not meant to exist…ergo…you must be…_terminated._"

Ron already had that gut feeling that no matter how much this man had acted, looked, and sounded like Neo, it wasn't him. He looked at this man who called himself "Alpha Six" and could feel it in every ounce, inch, and fiber of his being that this was his fight.

"You guys wanna terminate me?" Ron asked his rhetorical question as he took his stance from Monkey Kung Fu, "Bring it on!"

With that, Ron already had a plan of how to win the fight without even having a single fist thrown at him. Ducking underneath the reach of Alpha Six, he brought about his hand to his chest, sinking his fingers past his clothes and down to his very code. Yet, as his fingers were there he expected the liquid to come out and consume Alpha Six, making him into a copy of himself, but nothing happened. It was just there, stuck in his chest.

Alpha Six looked up with a very evil grin, "That won't work." He said as he made an undercut at Ron's outstretched arm, which sent Ron back into his stance of Monkey Kung Fu.

Six was more than willing to oblige Ron's proposal to _bring it on,_ and he did so with a quick punch towards Ron's face, but Ron, defying the speeds of the Matrix, had dodged the blow. It was a simple side step, yet, as he had dodged it, he noticed something was very different, he thought to himself that not even the agents threw punches that quickly, but he had to think quick again. Six brought up his other hand in a sharp uppercut towards Ron's chin, seeing it coming from the bottoms of his eyes; he leaned back while Six's fist narrowly missed his chin. Instantly he knew that this fight was very different, but he couldn't doubt himself when Six had brought about his leg into a roundhouse kick, but Ron had already recovered from the first two dodges and brought his hands about to catch Six's leg. He held it there, looked to his face and felt very afraid when he saw Alpha Six with that same very wide smile on his face that made him look like a demented jack-o-lantern.

"Impressive…" Six complemented sarcastically.

Six had broken the grip that Ron had upon his leg by bringing up his other to make his second kick to Ron's side. Ron felt the impact and it felt beyond anything that he had ever felt before; he knew that if it had been any harder it would have broken his arm.

He writhed in pain from the impact as he fell over to the concrete sidewalk, but in that short fall, Ron made a small side flip to get back to his feet. He looked to see the configuration of the Alphas around him, but before he could make his next move, he watched as the Matrix around him had slowed down to a crawl. It was like those moments on the VCR when things were paused or put into slow motion. His eyes had caught a yellow blur that had moved across the asphalt between the sidewalks, but the time that Ron's eyes had caught up to the front of the yellow blur, he only saw two things. One was the face of Alpha Four, The Woman of Yellow, who, like Alpha Six before her, was smiling with the most sinister of intents.

The second thing that he saw was only a flash, but Ron knew what it was; it was Four's elbow that landed itself into his chest. Even that was only half of it; the rest was when Ron flew backwards from the impact of the blow. He flew thirty feet backwards and a foot off the ground before landing on his back where his long duster was torn from the rocks in the asphalt.

Ron was about to get to his feet, but when he opened his eyes, he saw two Alphas above him, the Boy of Green and the Man of Blue; Alpha Three and Five. They were coming down on top of him with their legs outstretched in a downward flying kick aimed directly at Ron, and like before…he couldn't get out of the way in time.

The impact of both feet from Alpha Three and Five sent Ron's stomach flat against the inside of his body forcing his food up his throat and out his mouth like air out of a whoopee cushion. He rolled on the concrete wiping away the excess vomit, he quickly got back to his feet, squatted down making the asphalt beneath him ripple as he flew up to the skies above Middleton. He didn't care what direction he was going as long as it was away from the Alphas, he just had to get away to figure out what to do, to form some plan of attack.

Going against his better judgment as he rocketed straight up, he looked back down to the ground. He found only five of the Alphas were down there. He was about to ask himself where the sixth one was, but that was a case of asking too soon. He looked back up and found his answer. Alpha Two, the Tall Man of Red, was up in the sky flying just like Ron. In one swift solid motion, Alpha Two brought his fist against Ron's face. The blow had twisted Ron's neck and his body following after it. It was so much that Ron began to tumble his way back to the ground like a duck shot out of the sky during hunting season. He tried to bring himself around so that he could continue his escape, and to think about his plan of attack, but the next thing he knew, the back of his neck had slammed into the asphalt.

Ron had quickly opened his eyes to find Alpha One, the Spanish man of Gray, sitting on top of his chest. He tried to escape, but couldn't as Alpha One began pounding his face. One after the other they came down upon Ron's young face, knocking off his sunglasses, while the other Alphas gathered around to watch the savage beating.

"That's enough Alpha One." Six had stopped the beating, "You shouldn't get to have all the fun."

Alpha One had gotten off of Ron's chest, while Ron was starting to spit up the blood from his cracked and cut gums and lips. He rolled over to spit the blood out onto the black asphalt before he got back to his feet, his face already swelling from the hits that he had taken by Alpha One.

"They have the same powers as I do." Ron had assessed in his mind as he looked about, but his right eye began to close from the swelling. Seeing out of his good eye that the Alphas were just standing there, he saw the opportunity. He squatted down preparing to rocket upward once again.

"Oh no, you don't." Alpha Six had stated as he reached for Ron's ankle.

Ron looked down wondering why he had stopped, he found Alpha Six holding his ankle with that sick Jack-o-lantern smile on his face again.

Ron came crashing back down through the asphalt and down into the dirt and pipes below it. Once again, Ron tried to get back up, but then felt someone pulling him up by his hair. He felt as if he was being lifted up into the air, and he looked out of his good eye seeing that he was being taken out of a hole in the asphalt. That was when he felt himself being rocketed towards a nearby building. He slammed face first into the brick wall, the sharp edges cutting his already bruised up face, before falling to the concrete sidewalk below.

His body was cut, bruised, sore, and in such agony…but Ron 'Neo' Stoppable still got back to his feet, looking back at the Alphas with his one good eye, and thinking that he wasn't about to give up without a fight. He dusted himself off, wiped the blood and left over vomit from his face, and charged straight back into the battle.

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Back in the Jack Room of Neo Zion, Kim was still holding Ron's hand as she wiped away the white vomit and blood from his face and neck when it had spilled over. Watching Ron shake in that chair and seeing him sit up like that, it made her feel so helpless. A feeling that she had absolutely hated more than any other, especially when she was at her husband's side. This man who had saved her and it felt as if she couldn't save him. IF only Kim could have known more about the previous One, she would know that the woman who loved him had risked her own life for him at such a moment as Kim was in.

She looked up to see Morpheus squeezing something into one of the plugs in Ron's arm. It was just like a doctor giving a patient some kind of painkiller, the only thing that was missing from the file was the needle. The last of the assumed painkiller was squeezed into Ron's plug, and Kim looked back at her love.

"Hang in there, Ron…" She whispered, still holding onto her husband's hand when she leaned forward and placed a kiss on his forehead.

"Don't quit on us now, Ronald." Morpheus added, hoping that in some slim way his and Kim's message would reach him inside the Matrix.

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Ron dashed back into his fight with the Alphas with a renewed fire in his soul. He came down into the circle of Alphas remembering what was on the line in this fight, not just the lives of the human race, but the people who loved him were counting on him. There was Morpheus, Link, Barkin, Mister and Misses Possible…and…Kim…thinking about Kim only made the fire within him burn even hotter than before.

First, he brought his leg about and kicked Alpha One clear into the very building that Ron was slammed into. One down and five to go; he brought his hands onto the heads of Four and Five and slammed them into each other like a pair of symphony symbols. The impact was so that the two of them began to bleed profusely from their noses as well as leaving some very black bruises on their faces. While they were recovering from the onslaught, Ron made another attack on Alpha Four, bringing his fist down against Alpha Four's face and sending her across the asphalt and down the hole that Ron was once in. After he took care of her, he slammed his other fist against Five's face, which sent him rocketing up and away into the very next block.

Ron felt a swell of pride from these small victories, but the fight was far from over. He was about to turn his attention to the remaining Alphas, but took one second too long to admire his own grim work. One second later, he was caught by Alpha Two and Three. They grabbed him by his arms and held him there while he tried to break free, but it was no good, and it only got worse.

While he was being held by Two and Three, Alpha Six came up to Ron, smiling that stomach sickening smile that he had as he cracked his knuckles.

"Playtime is over, kid." Six stated before he started his assault. First, he brought his fist to Ron's stomach knocking the wind out of him, and then he brought his other fist down amplifying the pain. That was when the punches came at Ron's chest and abdomen at that Matrix breaking speed as if Six's arms were like bullets from a machine gun.

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Ron began to rock and shake in his Jack Chair and spitting up more blood that oozed over his lips, down his chin, and neck.

Kim looked at her husband and, seeing what was happening, reached down to a small bucket beside the Jack Chair. She reached down with her only free hand, still refusing to let go of her husband's hand. She reached for the cloth that was floating and soaking in the bucket, but still absolutely refusing to let go of Ron's hand as she ringed as much water as she could from the soaking rag. She brought the rag up and wiped over Ron's forehead. She looked down at her husband giving her own kind of moral support.

"Don't you dare lose, Ron." She whispered with tears running over her cheeks. "…please…"

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Ron continued to endure the poundings made by the onslaught of Alpha Six, and it came to the point where he had thought about giving up once again. No human being should suffer in such a way, but as he had endured the pain something very odd had happened. His hearing seemed to block out all other sounds, the slamming into his stomach, the laughter of the Alphas who were gloating in their victory and even his wan grunts. The only sound that Ron's ears would pick up made it seem completely impossible that it could be happening. Yet, it was part of her name; it was Kim's voice that had reached Ron.

"Don't you dare lose, Ron…please…"

Once again, Ron's spirit was fired up as he thought,_ 'I won't lose Kim',_ he grunted as he shifted his body weight and used the Alpha's to support him as he brought up his foot right to Six's face. He watched with a smug admiration when Six went thirty feet in the air. While Six was coming back down, Ron used a similar move on those who held him, brought One close, kicked him in the side and repeated to the other side.

It was hearing his dear Kim's voice, as if she were standing right beside him that made him feel like victory was his. That was until he looked at Alpha Six, who was spinning head over heels backwards like an acrobat in a mid-air performance. Six had stopped there in the air above the streets, applying his breaks to the physics of the Matrix.

Ron knew he had another fight coming from Six, but he held up his fists ready to take him on. He even said to himself:

"It's on…it's on like _Donkey Kong…_bi-atch…"

Unfortunately, once again, Ron's over-confidence had been his first mistake and he soon found that out right after Six had rocketed back to the ground with his fist out and slamming into his stomach. Then he felt his teeth crunch against one another when Six brought his fist up to his jaw. Ron went flying up and back, but felt another powerful blow, this time, coming to his side, right up against his arm. At first, he didn't feel anything, but then he heard a loud crack like a good sized twig being snapped in half or like a drumstick being torn off a freshly cooked whole chicken. The thing that had made it worse was the source of that crack came from Ron's arm. Before Ron could connect the dots in his mind, the pain from the injury induced by Six had set in. It was sharp at his arm, but dull when it radiated throughout his whole body. He screamed out in pain. It was one that Ron had never used before in his life, not from fear, but from sheer pain…and it was only the start of it, because Ron had finally landed on his back on the asphalt. It was incredible that all those things that had happened were all in mid-air.

Ron came down with a solid thud, and he was about to try to get back to his feet to finish the fight, but Six was a step ahead of him. Alpha Six had lifted Ron's leg, and then brought down his elbow to his kneecap, sending out that sickening crack and forcing his leg to bend in a new angle.

Ron screamed out in great pain once again as the pain in his leg compounded with the pain in his arm. The tears were already starting to flow from him since it was beyond any pain that he had ever experienced in his life. So much so, that his mind was starting to drift in and out of consciousness like a swimmer starting to be pulled down by the undertows of the ocean. To make it even worse, Six was still not done with Ron. He picked Ron up by his other, unbroken leg and threw him across the street through the glass window of an empty coffee shop. Ron could feel every vertebrae in his spine crash through that window, the glass cutting through his clothes, skin, and down to his flesh. He landed amongst a pile of tables and chairs, and, while he was lying there as helpless as he was, it occurred to him that this time no one would be coming to save him…he was going to lose.

Lying in that restaurant was when fate's ironic sense of humanity played its hand. On the speakers of the restaurant, there was a song playing that Ron knew; he had first heard it from a movie with Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery called "Highlander". The song was by a band called "Queen" and was called "Who Wants to Live Forever?" Ron couldn't help but give a stifled laugh when the song was starting.

_There's no time for us_

_There's no place for us…_

Ron tried to get back to his feet, even with his broken leg, and his arm hanging limp at his side. He saw Alpha Six stepping through the door to the coffee shop, and even though Ron couldn't see Six's eyes through those sunglasses, he knew that Six had bloodshed in them. Six was just like a machine in his relentlessness to terminate Ron, so much that Ron wondered if he ever truly was human before.

Ron slipped as he got back to his feet while the song continued its sweet irony.

_What is this thing that builds our dreams…_

_Then steps away from us? _

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"They're killing him…" Morpheus uttered, looking at the screen above Ron's head and seeing how bad his vitals were. His brainwaves were starting to slow down, while his heart rate was beating away like a rabbit on speed.

"Ron…" Kim whispered as her tears ran down her face and soaked into Ron's tattered shirt. She placed her head against his chest, which occasionally jerked while his heart continued to beat away as fast as it could. Kim squeezed Ron's hand as tight as she could while she whispered her half-hearted threat:

"If you die on me, Ron, I'll kick your ass."

_Who wants to live forever?_

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_Who wants to live forever? Ooohhhh…._

Ron had limped his way towards Six, over the chairs and around the tables, cradling his broken arm and enduring the pain in his leg. He looked up at Alpha Six, who seemed to be rather stunned by what was going on, that what he was witnessing couldn't happen in any way possible. Ron then looked to the broken window where the other Alphas had gathered to witness the same thing as Alpha Six.

The radio continued to play:

_There's no chance for us._

_It's all been decided for us…_

_This world has just one sweet moment set aside for us…_

"You are strong…" Six stated as if it was a complement to Ron, "Stronger than any of us had expected…so now the gloves are coming off."

Ron didn't say a word, not even when Six had picked him up by his shirt and threw him out the broken panoramic window. Ron flew out the window and past the other Alphas, who had stepped aside to allow him to land on the street.

As Ron was lying there face down on the asphalt, he tried to get back up with one good arm, but soon felt the searing hot pain from his face in its contact with the asphalt. He struggled to bring himself to his feet, but didn't need to when Alpha One picked him up by the back of his duster and brought him into a hold where Ron's back faced Alpha One's front. He held Ron towards the other Alphas like a human shield.

"You two ready?" One called to the other Alphas.

"Ready!" Alpha Two and Four answered back before they dashed straight for Ron. Their fists cocked back and ready to punch the helpless and defenseless Ron. Both of their fists landed at each side of Ron's rib cage, and once again making that loud sickening crack like the sound of popping knuckles. As his ribs cracked, Ron felt a salty liquid erupt out of his throat, through his mouth and over his lips where he found out that it was his own blood. At that point, Ron was dropped back to the asphalt, where on the support of one arm, he continued to cough up his own blood as if it was so much water that he had accidentally swallowed. The blood began to pool at the asphalt, but still Ron decided to get back up, despite all the pain and agony he was in. All common sense told him to stop or he would die, but he kept telling himself that he would die anyway, if the Oracle was correct. Then again, he thought, she probably is right. She _is_ the Oracle, but Ron still got back to his feet, surprising the Alphas, but Alpha Six was simply growing annoyed.

Six came over and gave Ron a good punch to his face that sent him back down to the ground. He turned to the other Alphas when his annoyance was bordering upon anger but as he turned he heard a cough.

"Hey!" Ron coughed more of his own blood when Alpha Six turned to face him, "Where…where you goin'? Th…this party's…just…just…gettin' started."

Ron then used his flight ability to make himself float back up to face the Alphas; he figured he had one good arm and one good leg, which should be enough as far as he was concerned. Then again, he probably had lost so much blood and taken so many punches to the head that he wasn't thinking clearly. He brought his good arm and leg about into a limp fighting stance as he floated an inch off the ground.

"Why won't you just die?" Alpha Six barked as he dashed across the street, grabbed Ron's good arm, and brought his elbow down onto his forearm, snapping it in half like a wishbone out of a turkey. Ron cried out once again in pain, his voice hoarse from his pitiful cries as well as his coughing while the radio in the coffee shop continued:

_Who wants to live forever?_

_Who wants to live forever? Oooooh…._

Alpha wasn't done just yet with Ron. It was no longer a mission from the Machines; it had become more of a personal battle with Six. He executed a short, powerful kick to Ron's thigh, breaking the bone within it. Ron fell once again to the ground, every inch outside and within his body was in the greatest of agony that he just wished he could roll over and die…to be released from all the pain and anguish that he had. Yet, despite that, he still found the will to keep moving and to get back up to fight; it was just harder to do with all his limbs rendered useless.

"Why?" Alpha Six asked of Ron, "Why can't you just die?" He asked in such bitter frustration and anger as he lifted his feet and slammed it into Ron's soft underbelly. Six must have kicked Ron seven times before the poor boy rolled over with blood oozing over his lips and across his face.

"Tell me…" Ron coughed up more blood making his words gurgle as he spoke, "What…would…Trin…Trinity say…if…she saw…you now?"

"Trinity?" Alpha Six asked, sounding as if the name had broken through to the person that he used to be, the man who ended the war of man and machines, Neo. For a moment, out of Ron's good eye he thought he saw a glimpse of humanity coming to the surface like a great whale ready to breach for air. Then Alpha Six blew it when he looked down at the pitiful Ron with contempt showing in his brow and lips. "Enough of this trite!"

_Who dares to love forever…?_

_Oh, when love must die…_

Alpha Six got down on his knees and began pounding his fists one after the other into Ron, anywhere he could, as long as it was hurting him. He brought down his fists onto Ron as if each one would be the last punch he'd make. Each punch he made sent blood spurting from Ron's lips like the ooze out of a squeezed zit. He came up to Ron's face and began to beat him some more, spreading blood onto his own hands while the blood on Ron's face turned black and by that time more than one of Ron's teeth had been knocked out.

Ron's face was no longer recognizable with most of it swollen and black with blood all across his face. Alpha Six had decided that he had enough when he got back to his feet and looked down at Ron and how disgustingly pitiful he looked. He was just lying there, his clothes ripped, blood pooling around his head, and his face no longer anything like it was at the beginning of the fight.

Then the Alpha's watched as Ron "Neo" Stoppable tried to move once again.

Alpha Two shook his head, "What keeps you going, kid?" He asked, his voice shocked by the question sounding as if he actually had a faint moment of compassion for Ron.

"I…" Ron coughed up more of that black blood onto his lips as he gave Alpha Two his answer, "I…prom…promised…K…P…"

Alpha Six's annoyance had reached its peak when he reached for Ron's collar; he gripped it tightly as if he was going to pick him up. Then Six squatted down making the Matrix Code within the concrete ripple as he flew upwards, higher and higher, over the buildings of Middleton.

_Then touch my tears with your lips…_

_Touch my war with your fingertips…_

_Cause we can't have forever…_

_And we can't love forever…_

_Forever is our today…_

Ron looked around to see that he had been taken into the very clouds over Middleton, just he and Alpha Six. The coolness of the clouds around him felt nice against his burning wounds as if he had been laid down in a pool of cold water. He felt himself drifting in and out of consciousness from the savage beatings and loss of blood. His good eye looked to Alpha Six who held him close and looked at Ron with such hatred, contempt, frustration, and fury.

"Any last words, boy?" Six snarled at Ron

"Yeah…" Ron had chocked out, "Tell…tell KP…I…I…I'm sorry…for not…keep…keeping my…promise…and…tell her…I…_I love her…_"

"Don't worry." Six had sneered at Ron's request, "You can tell her yourself in hell!"

Ron felt himself being hugged by Alpha Six. He wondered why he was doing this, and then he found out when they were going down head first to the ground. The wind whipping at his face, making every limp and useless part of him ping with even more agony as their descent became more and more rapid, and the ground coming closer and closer. At the time of going down, Ron thought to himself that it's not the fall that kills: it's the stopping. Funny to think of something like that when he was only seconds away from his own death.

_Who wants to live forever?_

Ron looked down seeing how close the ground was, only a few more seconds until impact. By that time, Alpha Six had already let him go for him to complete the rest of his descent on his own. In those few seconds Ron had thought to himself that perhaps it was foolish to think that he could defy the prophecy given to him. He had accepted his fate, despite the solemn promise that he had made to Kim. With the ground only a few more seconds away, Ron only had one last thought:

"Good-bye, Kim…" He thought as he came down to the ground like a dropping bomb, "I will always love you…"

_Forever is our today… _

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Before the impact and back in the Jack Room of Neo Zion, Ron's friends, crewmates, and family were cheering for him. At least most of them, except Kim, who continued to stay by her husband's side. Her eyes were burning from her tears as she continued to wipe away more of the blood that Ron had spit up. As she did, she kept looking back, listening to them cheer on Ron, but towards the end their cheers were silent, saying nothing about what they were seeing on the screen. The only hint that she got was from her mom who looked over at the coded screens and she uttered one sentence that made Kim worry.

"Pull up, Ron." She uttered as if she, like Kim, was pleading for Ron to be alright.

Kim looked back at Ron's sleeping body and face that had spit up so much blood; she reached up with her one free hand to stroke the back of Ron's head. She wanted to believe that Ron was winning the fight, that somehow he'd find a way to defeat the six that the Machines had chosen. It was ironically funny how Ron believed that Kim would win her fight and then Kim believed that Ron could win. It wasn't because Ron Stoppable was the One; it was because…Ron…was _Ron._

Then…the unthinkable had happened…

Kim had laid her head once again upon Ron's chest, feeling it shake while his heart was beating faster and faster. He was still, for a few seconds, and that was when his body had one last jerk. It was a very violent one that shook the very chair that he was sitting in. That shake had made Kim jerk back to look Ron over to see if he was still alright. She looked up at the vitals monitor and witnessed his heart beat faster and faster, and then…the heart rate line went flat and the monitor sending out that long monotone beep.

The Jack Room was completely silent; everyone was in disbelief at what they saw on the screen, but not as much as Kim who continued to hold onto her husband's hand. She felt his grip loosen while his body went limp, and she still refused to believe what was happening.

"Ron?" She asked, still hoping down to the depths of her heart that it was all a lie. That Ron would simply awaken and look at her with those big, chocolate brown eyes and tell Kim that the fight was over, that he had won, and everything would be fine from that moment on. She waited for moment after moment and still nothing had happened, just Ron's limp body and the vitals monitor continuing its long monotone beep.

"Oh please, no….Ron…" Kim began to sob loudly as the reality of what had happened began to set in, "Ron!"

As Kim had tried to grasp the reality of what had happened, the others in the room were also trying to gain some kind of sense out of the loss. Mister and Misses Possible were hugging each other, just like Niobe and Morpheus, with Misses Possible weeping and Morpheus allowing a few tears to roll down his face, while Ghost stood there looking at the screen as pale as a sheet of paper and looking as if a soft breeze would knock him over. Link, on the other hand, his eyes were wide at the code, and his jaw at his chest, he was still at that stage wondering _if_ it had actually happened.

"Ron!" Kim screamed as she wept, shaking all over to her very core while her shoulders and knees shuddered. She glanced around the room looking for signs of help or that once again it was all a lie, but seeing her friends, crewmates, and her parents in their own mourning the reality had sunk in completely for her.

"Ron!" He pleaded into Ron's chest, "No…you promised!"

She cried out as she lifted her free hand to pound upon Ron's lifeless chest as if she wanted him to know how much pain she was in. Still looking at his body, seeing no change from his lifeless body and flat lined heart rate, she finally knew that this time he wouldn't come back...and she was so angry for that.

"Ron!" She screamed, this time digging her fingers into his tattered clothes, "Come back! Come back, you bastard! You promised you wouldn't leave me! You promised! RON!"

_Who wants to live forever anyway…?_

To be continued…


	15. Upgraded Chapter 7

**The ****Kimmatrix****: Matrix Upgraded**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and ****Turles**

**Chapter 7: Upgrade**

"_The fastest way to end a war is to lose it."_

- George Orwell

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

"RON!" Kim had screamed in her loss of her loved one, her cry echoing throughout the Jack Chamber, and possibly all of Neo Zion.

Within a matter of seconds, the rest of the _Mad Dog_ crew came to the Jack Chamber. The first of the trio was Steve "Kid" Barkin, behind him were Brick "Tater Salad" Flagg and Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller. All three of them looking mildly panicked as they looked around the Jack Chamber for some answers. Barkin was the first to ask:

"What in the hell is goin' on here, people?" He asked, looking at all the people in their mourning for Ron Stoppable, and it didn't take long for Barkin or the rest of his crew to connect the dots, "He…he…_lost…?"_

Barkin couldn't believe it until he saw the vitals monitor that had already gone flat-line. He looked down to Ron with his weeping bride crying into his shirt. Even he, the man who was always so rigid and disciplined at Middleton High, felt tremendous loss as well. To him, Ron was two people: the meek little boy that Barkin hoped would be like him in some small way, and the part of Ron that was Neo, the very man who saved Barkin from the Matrix, despite how many times he was told that he saved himself. Still, it was the faith that the Kid had in him, he _believed_ in him…and now he was gone.

Even Brick Flagg had felt a small amount of loss, even though Ron was always at the bottom of the High School food chain; Brick still had a small admiration for Ron. Mainly because Ron got to hang around with Kim Possible. After all, in the laws of High School, how likely would it have been for a cheerleader like Kim to be friends with someone like Ron? Probably not the most likely of occurrences.

Though Bonnie on the other hand… her sense of loss was incredible, just as bad, if not more so than Kim's. Even though it was thought to be otherwise, Bonnie had felt as if a piece of her own heart had died along with Ron Stoppable. She approached the weeping Kim, her throat as dry as it had ever been in her life. She was only an arms length away, but she kept wondering what she was supposed to say to could ease the pain, because Bonnie was human too.

"Kim…" Bonnie uttered, hoping to try to start her condolences to the widow Stoppable.

Kim had immediately stopped crying. She stood back up and looked at Bonnie with the fiercest of glares that Bonnie had ever seen. That face red and raw from her tears and those green eyes blazing at Bonnie that made her think that she might catch on fire from that look.

"Happy now?" Kim had asked icily of Bonnie.

Bonnie's throat was drier than Sahara sand, and she could barely answer Kim's question.

"Are you, Bonnie?" Kim had demanded of her rival, "This is what you always wanted to see, isn't it? Me, completely broken down, well here you go, happy now!"

With each fiery accusation Kim had made of Bonnie, she took a step closer like a lion closing in for the kill. Frightened by this, Bonnie took a step back, but with each step of Kim's advancements she tried to verbally defend herself.

"Kim…I…" Bonnie had tried to search for the words that could make the situation a little better, or at least smooth it out enough for Kim to back down. To Bonnie's eyes, it was the only other time that she had seen Kim cry; the last time was on that very day when Kim had met Ron.

"Go ahead, Bonnie…say it!" Kim encouraged to Bonnie in her thick sarcasm while giving Bonnie a good shove to her chest that sent her tumbling backward against the wall with its old steel grating and pipes behind it. Bonnie felt so afraid, seeing the daggers in Kim's eyes that she had for her. "The loser got what was coming to him, and oh, _how the mighty Kim Possible has fallen_! Go ahead Bonnie! I know that's what you're thinking, _so say it!_ _Go ahead! SAY IT!"_

Without giving any thought to it, Bonnie reached out and, in one quick motion, slapped Kim's face. It didn't exactly register with Kim what had happened until she reached up to feel the red welt on her face in the shape of Bonnie's right hand and listened to the reverberations that the crack of skin against skin had echoed through the Jack Chamber like lighting crashing overhead. Kim looked at Bonnie with a face of such surprised shock that she still was wondering whether what she had thought had happened did, in fact, happen.

Bonnie was still holding her position with her right arm over her chest hiding her face as her tears ran down her tanned skin. Her body shaking all over as if she had just come out of a cold pool of water and was trying to adjust to the temperature.

"Just because you married him…doesn't mean you were the only person on this God forsaken planet who loved him, Kimberly." Bonnie hissed at Kim as she straightened herself, giving a good sniffle as she wept, "You were just…the one who was smart enough…to act on it instead of pushing him away."

Kim continued to rub her face as the pain became a dull sting, but she came to an understanding that she had never reached about Bonnie. Even though Bonnie had admitted that she did seduce Ron in order to bring down her rival, Kim Possible, she did love Ron in a way that Kim never thought possible from someone like her. That was when the idea of how foolish she had been started to come down on her, and Kim Possible, the girl who could do anything, was never one to admit, even to herself, that she was wrong. She looked to the floor while the Jack Chamber went quiet, until there was a series of footsteps and the sounds of a chair being prepared.

"Morpheus!" Niobe called, sounding panicked by what was going on.

All eyes went to Morpheus, who was doing just as was expected, he was prepping a Jack Chair for himself. Even though several questions were in mind about the why he was doing what he was doing; only the operator had the candor to ask it directly.

"With all due respect, sir, what the hell are you doing?" Link asked, sounding half-surprised by what he was seeing.

"Ronald was part of my crew," Morpheus answered, trying to keep his cool headedness, but still having a few tears roll down his face, "I take what they did personal…_very personal._"

Everyone else in the Jack Chamber was quiet as Morpheus had laid himself into the Jack Chair and was reaching for the Jack Needle to plug himself into the Matrix to exact his revenge. While only a few feet away, Kim 'Angel' Stoppable and Bonnie 'Tres' Rockwaller looked at each other, eye to eye, and for once in their lives, all the hatred, mistrust, rivalry, and backstabbing that the two had was put aside as Morpheus' idea had caught on. The next second, they looked at each other with new determination, very much the same kind of look when Kim and Ron went out on missions. It didn't take very long for the two of them to follow Morpheus in his plan of action. The girls prepped two chairs next to Morpheus, strapping themselves in and awkwardly plugging themselves in.

"You too?" Link asked as he let out a frustrated and angry sigh, "you're all crazy! This is suicide!"

"Ronald knew that if he went to fight, he would die," Morpheus stated, being as philosophical as always, and making his manifesto of honor, "Are we to dishonor his memory by providing less bravery in avenging his death?"

It would have been silent, but Niobe was just as opinionated.

"Goddamn it, Morpheus!" Niobe snarled tearfully at her husband, "Some things never change… they'll _kill you!_"

Kim said emotionlessly, "I'm already dead."

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Back inside the Matrix, on the streets of Middleton, Colorado, just outside the preschool, the Alphas were standing at the edge of a large crater amidst the destruction caused by them and the Seventh Anomaly. They all had great pride in the achievement of their mission, except for one. The Sixth Anomaly, Alpha Six, who once had the name of Neo, kept looking down at the crater to face down the body of Ron Stoppable and kept pondering that question that he had been asked. Before, he was sure of himself, the mission was there and there was not an ounce of doubt in his programmed mind. Then that name was spoken in that question, and it was as if something had been restarted…or rebooted, to use a more computerized term. All the memories of his old life started to come back in a tidal wave that drowned Alpha Six, or was he Neo, in the most pertinent and obvious question.

"What…" Six uttered to himself as he looked down the crater, "What have we done?"

Inside the crater, one of Ron Stoppable's most faithful companions was also dealing with the painful loss of his life long friend. The pink skinned, naked mole rat named Rufus was hugging the side of Ron's head and weeping like he never had before in his small life. It was odd from a certain point of view, Morpheus had said that Rufus seemed to be a part of Ron's RSI (Residual Self-Image), since Ron was dead, shouldn't Rufus have been gone too? To Rufus' point of view, he might as well be, because he needed Ron; he came to depend upon him. Ron was his friend, one of few in the cold heartless illusionary world of the Matrix, when everyone else laughed and made fun of him. He continued to weep in his little squeaks over the body of his dead friend.

While back at the edge of the crater, the Alphas continued to look down, they were going to make absolutely sure that Ron Stoppable was dead. After only a few minutes, it was confirmed in their programmed minds that he was definitely deceased, or terminated as would it would be termed in a cold machine's mind...except for Six.

"Target is terminated." Alpha Four said coldly with no joy or even sadness in her voice, she had stated it as if it was some kind of cleaning job was done.

"Our next orders are to return to the source." Alpha Two stated.

"And what?" Alpha Six asked, "Face deletion like the other programs before us that have no purpose?"

"This is irrational." Alpha One observed, "You must be malfunctioning."

"I'm not." Alpha Six contended as he pondered Ron's question of what Trinity would think of him, "I'm freeing my mind, like we all did once before."

"This does not register with our orders." Alpha Five contended with Six's reasoning.

"That's because we're not machines!" Six screamed at Five, "We are human beings!"

"The fight must have damaged Six's source code." Alpha Two had guessed the condition of his comrade, "He must be returned to the source."

"My name is not Six!" Six had yelled at Two across the crater, "My name is _Neo_…and I'm not going anywhere!"

"You got that right." A woman's voice had added to the conversation.

Alpha Six (Neo) looked behind him to see where the voice came from, and even though it was an impossibility, he could've sworn he saw Trinity standing there. He saw a young woman with long, flowing, ginger hair, and black pleather all around her, her navel exposing top, her pants, and long coat that flared out like a cape when she jumped up for the kick. Six had seen the look in her eyes; they didn't even seem human. They looked more like they belonged to a vicious animal. He only saw those eyes for that split second before the woman's foot made contact with his head, but he was truly terrified in that moment. The force of the kick sent him down to the pavement while the other Alphas decided to engage the new enemy, but Six had anticipated it as he recovered from the attack.

"No," He called to his comrades, "This fight is personal."

"Damn right about that." Kimberly Anne "Angel" Stoppable snarled as she cocked her fist and brought it rocketing down to Six's face, but he was quick and rolled to his side.

He came up, watching Kim's fist crater the asphalt. Her face did not show an ounce of pain. She was in such a rage that pain didn't seem to matter, and the fact that she had missed her target only made her angrier. She was only too quick to remedy the situation as she brought about her other fist against Six's face. The impact was so much that not only did Kim and Six feel it, but all the Alphas as well as Morpheus and Bonnie (who were standing at the chain-link fence of the preschool) heard a very loud crack.

Kim had broken Six's nose, but even with that, Kim wasn't satisfied. She reached down with both hands, but Alpha Six reached up and grabbed them to stop the attack. Yet, Kim wasn't one to give up so easily; she let out a cry that also sounded like a wild animal in a blood-lusting frenzy, and with that cry she brought her body up and headbutted Six's face, knocking off his sunglasses and sending him into even more pain against his already broken nose.

Six had decided that he had enough of this. Holding Kim by the arms, he got back to his feet and, because of his six-foot two-inch stature, he held Kim several inches off the ground by her wrists. Kim struggled and tried to kick only to miss, but Alpha Six had spotted something. He looked over at Morpheus and Bonnie, the two of them looking so familiar, and Six still trying to sort out the flood of memories in his mind. The man wasn't what he was concentrating on so much. It was the woman who wore a full body latex suit, black in color, and her brown hair slicked back and held there, not allowing a single hair to fall out of place. Then there were her dark sunglasses that Alpha Six had seen before, he had seen _her_ before. As he stared at her, that same question came back into his mind:

"What would Trinity say if she saw me now?" Six thought to himself, but as he thought his grip on the struggling Kim had loosened that was when Alpha Two and Four pounced upon the by-standers. Two went for the brown haired girl, while Four went for the dark, bald man. Six had let go of Kim and called out to Alpha Two. "_Don't touch her!"_

The second that Six had let go of Kim; he literally flew at Alpha Two and brought his fist down on his face, sending him head first into the concrete sidewalk. His head breaking through the sidewalk as if it were made out of cardboard and with his former comrade down, Six had turned to Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller, looking at her with his dark eyes as if he wanted nothing more than to throw his arms around her. The next moment, Six had stepped over to the edge of the crater where Ron "Neo" Stoppable lay.

"Neo?" Morpheus called out weakly to the Alpha

"Yes…It's me, Morpheus…oh dear God what have we done?" Six had asked as he dropped to his knees burying his face in his hands despite how much his broken nose had hurt him. He wept as he asked once more, _"What have I done?"_

"Alpha Six." Alpha Five commanded his attention from across the crater, "You're simply malfunctioning. Our mission is complete; let us return to the source."

"Stop it!" Six cried sniffling between each of his shouts while his voice cracked, "Stop this! All of you! We each at one time or another …sacrificed our lives for mankind…and here we finished mankind's last hope!"

"Hope from what? He was a threat…" Alpha Three stated, he did it with such confidence, like Six, there was no a single doubt in his mind about the mission until the question was asked. He looked down into the crater and back up to Six with a tilted head, "Wasn't he?"

All of the Alphas gathered around the crater once again, even Alpha Two who had recovered from the attack that was made on him by Six. At the craters edge, they looked to the body of Ron Stoppable with a new set of eyes. The doubt and confusion that Six and Three had felt soon spread to the minds of the other Alphas like a computer virus bringing the system to a crash.

The answer to the question that Alpha Three had was one that Six knew the definite answer to. He reached up to his broken nose and a small flurry of the Matrix code swirled around it like a funnel of a tornado and the nose was set back into place and repaired so that it seemed that the attack by Kim had never happened. After his nose was fixed, he wiped away the dried blood before reaching down to the broken asphalt where his sunglasses lay. He slipped them back on as a feeling within him grew stronger, that he knew who the real enemy was and that feeling was like a tremor within the Matrix itself, and it was growing more violent with each passing moment. Six knew the storm was coming straight at him…

Déjà vu…all over again.

Six got back to his feet and looked to the shadows of a nearby building where the answer to Alpha Three's questions were at.

"No." Six answered as he raised his hand, extending his finger, 'Ron was not a threat. _He is._"

All eyes, the Alphas as well as Bonnie, Kim, and Morpheus looked to the shadows of the nearby building. There in the shade of that building came slow applause, the kind that only one set of hands could do. Following the mockery of applause was a deep laugh, one that Alpha Six knew all too well. They watched as the source of the slow applause and that _evil_ laughter came out into the light. He wore a black suit and a pair of slightly opaque rectangular sunglasses.

"Bravo, Mister Anderson!" Smith called to Alpha Six, wrapping up his slow applause, "Bravo! You are far more resilient than I suspected, but there again, you always were hard to control and even kill."

Smith walked over into the middle of the street and over to the crater. He looked down to find Ron Stoppable's body down amongst the dirt and debris. He then looked back up at the Alphas and smiled that crooked smile that he had. It was the kind that seemed to say that he knew a secret that he was about to tell or probably never would.

"I would like to thank you, Mister Anderson," Smith stated, still elongating the s-sounds in his sentence like the snake that he was, "Or is it Neo? No, wait, it's Alpha Six now, isn't it? You have _far_ too many names, it's so…_confusing_…but nevertheless I'd like to thank you for making my job easier. Now we can continue our plan on schedule."

"Over my dead body, Smith!" Six snarled as he took his steps towards his arch foe.

"Go ahead, Mister Anderson." Smith dared Alpha Six as he took off his sunglasses, stuck out his face, and tapped his finger on cleft chin, "Give me your best shot."

Alpha Six saw his opportunity. He cocked his fist back and, with all his might, he drove his fist forward, plowing through the codes of the Matrix. Then it stopped, but it was not like Six's fist had hit a brick wall or some kind of barrier, it was as if something within him had stopped his arm. At first, to Alpha Six, it felt like his entire body had locked up into that one position, but that was when the pain had started. It was a sharp ping in his head, but then the next wave had hit him and it became so painful, like the worst kind of migraine that anyone can have. So much that Six had grabbed the sides of his head and fell to his knees groaning in pain.

"What's the matter, Mister Anderson?" Smith had asked mockingly giggling at Six's pain, "Figured it out yet? Our little rivalry…your five little friends' escapades…your proving 'love is stronger than the system'? It was all a ploy! _We're working for the same boss, always have!_"

Smith had laughed at Alpha Six as he imparted the secret to him.

"It's…not true…" Six growled trying to deny it as the pain started to subside.

"Oh, but _it is,_ Mister Anderson," Smith smirked down at the helpless Alpha, "Since the defeat of Mister Stoppable only minutes ago, as we speak the Omega Class Sentinels are on their way to Neo Zion, then they will move to the free cities on the surface. All the freed will soon be dead and those inside the Matrix will have my wonderful personality. When they are freed on the shutdown, I, Deus Ex Machina, will be the absolute on Earth!"

To the ears of Kim Possible, Smith sounded like every two-bit bad guy and villain that she had faced. Yet, with Smith doing his ranting, it was a hundred times more terrifying then any villain that Kim had faced, because he had the power and the will to do it all. Yet, most of all, Kim was truly powerless to stop him; even at her best she couldn't stop Smith. Only Ron had that power to do that…and he was gone.

Though Alpha Six made a very frightening revelation of his own. With the way that Smith was speaking and how he knew about all of the plans, there was only one person that the Alphas knew who had that information.

"Then…you're…" Six stated as the dots connected themselves.

"Yes…" Smith confirmed Six's suspicions about who he truly was, "I am the main control program of all machines…or rather…an extension of it. Thanks to you, Mister Anderson, and the late Mister Stoppable, I have powers beyond any other program. I am a program freed of all rules and all boundaries. And I have you both to thank for that."

Smith had once again started to laugh as he slipped back on his sunglasses reveling at the shocked faces of the Alphas and the by-standers there.

"Smith…" The Freed Agent waxed for a moment, "Deus Ex Machina…no, those names no longer suit me. You can call me…_God…_"

Alpha Six got back to his feet, enduring the tormenting laughter of Smith. He knew that Kim, Bonnie, and Morpheus couldn't do anything; even the Alphas couldn't stop him because of that failsafe that prevented them from attacking him. Even with such odds, Six knew that there had to be a way out of this; there's always another way. That was when he looked back down into the crater and found that one thin ray of hope. He looked back at Smith and smiled with his plan in mind.

"I'll call you _dead _is more like it. We can't stop you Smith," Six stated, "But he can…or else you would have stopped him yourself instead of sending us to do it for you."

"Stoppable?" Smith cackled when he looked down into the crater, "He is my equal; we're two sides of one being. Our powers are equal, though my skills are greater, he cannot beat me, even if you revived him."

"Then we'll just have to give him… an _upgrade_." Alpha Six countered Smith as he jumped down into the crater and knelt down next to Ron Stoppable.

"What!" Smith had asked, very surprised by this turn of events.

Down in the crater, the naked mole rat Rufus started to chirp madly at Alpha Six and even jumped out to bite his hand. Six had endured the pain as he took Ron's body by the shoulders and turned him over in his arms. As Six held Ron's limp body, he placed his hand over his chest.

"You'll be alright, kid." Six assured as his hand began to glow a bright green while visibly the code of the Matrix flowed like water from his hand into Ron's chest, "We are one."

"What are you doing?" Smith cried out at the Sixth Alpha angrily.

The other Alphas were quick to catch onto Six's idea; the first one to jump down to help him in the endeavor was Alpha Three who had also made his choice to fight the system. He knelt down next to Ron's body and placed his hand next to Six's and it too began to glow a bright green with the Matrix code flowing into Ron's chest.

"We are one." Alpha Three chanted along with Six.

"We are one." Alpha Three and Six chanted together.

"No!" Smith cried out, his eyes widening in fear from behind his sunglasses, "I didn't say this could happen!"

Alpha Two and Four then jumped down into the crater together and placed their hands over Ron's stomach. Their hands glowing, adding their luminosity to the others that made it look like a very bright spotlight down there in the crater. The code flowed from them into Ron's body yet the codes grew with such intensity that they began to flow over every inch of Ron's body. As the code covered him, every imperfection began to fix itself, every cut, bruise, scratch, scrape, and rip.

"We are one." Alpha Two and Four chanted together.

"We are one." Alpha Two, Four, Six, and Three chanted.

"This is the Oracle's doing…" Smith growled as he watched the scene unfold before his eyes. He tried to move in closer but he looked down to find his feet had sunk into the asphalt and were trapped. He struggled to get out but he couldn't as the last two went in. "Damn her!"

Alpha One and Five were the last to jump into the crater and they wasted no time as they placed their hands over Ron's abdomen, their hands glowing and making that place in the grater so bright that even Kim, Morpheus, and Bonnie had to cover their eyes. It was as if a new star was being born in that crater.

"We are one!" Alpha One and Five chanted together

"You can't do this, Mister Anderson!" Smith yelled at his former foe, "You're _mine!_ You have to obey _me!_"

From within the brightness of the crater Smith could still make out the shapes. He could see that the Alphas were being deconstructed one line of code at a time and it was all flowing into Ron Stoppable. Alphas One, Three, and Four were already "stripped" down to their green code that made out the shapes of their bodies. Until each line began to fall away into Ron's chest. The process then became exponential, at first slow but gradually going faster and faster until only Alpha Six remained. He looked up at Smith from the radiant light.

"You know what?" Six asked Smith as he brought out one free hand that was feeding his code into Ron, "I said this before I believe…how about I give you the finger?"

With his one free hand Alpha Six did just that, extended his middle finger upwards. He did it with such a resilient smile as if in all the battles that he and Smith had in the past, Neo would be the one to have the last word. Before Smith could even say a word back to Six, he was already stripped down to his code that flowed into Ron.

"This is for you Trinity…" Neo said, his voice sounding robotic or at least losing its human tone as his code filled Ron to the brim like precious water in a canteen, "I'm finally coming back to you. We…are…one…"

With that last line of code, there was a great explosion of bright light; it was like a miniature supernova. It knocked Kim, Bonnie, Morpheus, and even Smith flat onto their backs while they quickly covered their eyes from the white flash. While they had their eyes closed and covered, all around them the damage caused by the fight was being repaired. The streets asphalt became like that of liquid wax flowing over the bare and broken areas until the entire street looked as if it had just been repaved and repainted. The same was true with the sidewalks and the nearby buildings; all of them began to repair themselves until that street near the Middleton Preschool just looked as it did when Ron Stoppable came to do his fight.

The ones who remained got back up to a sitting position. That was when they looked to where the crater once was located. In its place they saw a tornado of that green, Matrix code. It swirled from the place where the crater was all the way up to the clouds themselves. Oddly enough as it swirled round and round there was not a scrap of debris that was being pulled into it. Much like the One himself, the tornado of code defied all rules and boundaries of the Matrix.

Panicked, Morpheus reached into his coat and pulled out his cell phone, calling for the operator back at the Neo Zion Jack Chamber.

"Link, what the hell is going on?" He demanded from the operator as he was still mesmerized by the swirling green coded tornado.

"I don't know, sir." Link had replied, "In the years that I've been an operator, I have _never_ seen anything like this. It's like the granddaddy of all Matrix déjà vu!"

Morpheus dropped the phone to watch the next spectacle take place. All eyes of those who were there were locked in place by what they were seeing. The green tornado of the Matrix code had begun to shrink. Its height from the clouds coming down to the height of the buildings, then the trees, and then to the size of a person. At the same time, the code was compacting upon itself, lines overlapping other lines of code, until the tornado was the size of a person and it could no longer be distinguished between one line of code to the next. It was simply the color green with small fragments of scenery behind it. The tornado continued to swirl as one solid color like clay on a turning platter being formed into a dish.

The tornado then changed shape; once again it compacted upon itself, shifting from its funnel shape into a sphere. A green ball that floated a few feet above the street, at first it was misshapen until it began to reform and reshape itself into a perfect sphere. To the eyes of those looking, it was beautiful in its perfection; it must have been perfect down to the thousandths of an inch, while its surface reflected everything around it like an emerald mirror. After floating for what must have been between twenty seconds and half a minute, the sphere began to illuminate as if it was becoming like the sun, a sphere of light, but, in its luminosity, the sphere began to take a new shape. At first, it was difficult to tell what, but it seemed that it was starting to grow stubs that became longer and longer, two at the bottom and one on each side. At the top, another stub formed but instead of elongating, the stub began another misshapen sphere. Then from the long stubs that grew from the side, five smaller stubs grew from one another. After a few minutes of the glowing, green sphere shaping itself, it was clear what it was forming; it was making itself into a human body.

All were mesmerized when they watched the radiant and roiling green body start to form clothes, a long coat that came down to the ankles, while the coat itself formed buttons from the waist up to the high collar neck. The head started to form short messy hair, oversized ears, and a pair of sunglasses. The body of this new being floated only inches off the pavement before the green light had diminished like metal cooling after being pulled from the fire. The light had faded revealing a man with bleached blonde, messy hair with large ears and freckles on his cheeks.

"We…are…now…one…" The blonde haired man said, looking down at his hands and the rest of his body.

Kim looked out across the street at the man standing there; she felt her heart soar from the pit of her stomach, from when she saw Ron die, all the way up to the top of her throat, and felt the tears well up over her eyes. She scrambled to get to her feet while she dashed over the asphalt to the man that she loved. She fell a couple of times trying to get there, but she didn't care; the pain that she felt in her falls wasn't even relevant. All she wanted, more than anything in the world, was to actually feel Ron in her arms. She didn't care if they were in the Matrix; she just wanted her Ron. Her arms were already around Ron's neck before he even got a chance to turn around to face her.

"Ron!" Kim cried while she continued to weep into his long black duster.

"Hey, Kim," Ron smiled, "I guess I got to keep my promise, after all, huh?"

"I…" Kim tried to get the words out between each sob, "I thought…I thought…you left me, Ron…"

"But I'm here now, Kim," Ron whispered as he turned to face her, "And Kim…"

Kim looked up at Ron, her green eyes bloodshot from her tears. She watched as Ron reached up to take off his black sunglasses to reveal the eyes behind them, the same chocolate brown eyes that held such great innocence in them, as well as such great love.

"Yeah?" Kim sniffled as she smiled back at Ron.

"Too much black doesn't look all that good on you," Ron smiled, "I liked the red jacket better."

Kim smiled. More tears welled up and spilled over her cheeks as she buried her face in Ron's chest. It still felt odd to Kim that only six months ago she could cry on his shoulder, and then he grew until she could only place her head on his chest, but Ron was still Ron, no matter what. Ron hugged Kim back, while Bonnie and Morpheus approached.

"You're…" Morpheus, the man of a thousand big and confusing words, was truly speechless by what he was gazing at, "You're…alive?"

Ron looked up, first to Bonnie and then to Morpheus, who truly seemed to have become his surrogate father with his wisdom and advice. Ron slipped back on his black, mirrored sunglasses at his mentor with a new seriousness.

"Yeah," Ron replied, "I'm alive, but you won't be for too much longer if you don't get out of here."

"What?" Bonnie asked surprised, "Why?"

"The Sentinels are on their way to Neo Zion, first," Ron explained "After that they'll regroup and then move to every freed city on the Earth's surface."

"How do you know, Ron?" Bonnie asked.

"I can feel them and we're wasting time, now go. Go!" Ron insisted.

Morpheus, despite how philosophical he was, was never one to waste time when he could take action. He looked back at his hand to see his cell phone still there; he then brought it back up to his ear and spoke to Link.

"Link," He called, sounding impatient, "I need an exit and fast."

"At once, sir," Link answered back, "And it looks like you're in luck, there's a payphone at a Smarty Mart, one block west of you."

"Good," Morpheus answered back, "and please inform the council that the Sentinels are coming."

"Shit…" Link uttered.

"My thoughts exactly," Morpheus replied as he hung up the phone and slipped it back in his pocket, "Bonnie, Kimberly, let's go!"

"I'm not leaving Ron." Kim said defiantly.

"No, Kim," Ron contradicted.

Kim looked sharply back at the man she loved, "What?"

"Go with them, Kim," Ron repeated, "I'll be right behind you."

"No," Kim refused firmly, "I'm not leaving you!"

Ron reached out and grabbed Kim by the sides of her arms, "Kim, I said go…now!"

Kim had let go of her hold on Ron and looked at him surprised, he had already been dead once, had come back to life, and now was yelling at her. Kim had started to wonder again if it was truly Ron that was standing there, she did piece together the fact that Ron had merged with six other people. So, she was wondering to herself whether it was Ron talking or one of those six people who merged with him.

Ron smiled, "It's alright, KP," he tried to reassure his wife, "I'll be right behind you. I have no intention of dying again today."

"You better not," Kim said to her husband in a very snippy way, "Or I'll bring you back just so I can kick your ass!"

"Fair enough," Ron shrugged, "I'm just watching your back, KP. It's what I do best."

"Not really, but close," Kim said with a smile on her face, seeing that it was her Ron speaking, "We'll do what you're best at after we're alone, okay?"

"You got it, KP," Ron smiled before he leaned over and kissed his wife.

"Can we get going?" Bonnie asked half impatient (as she usually was) as well as half scared to death.

Morpheus, Ron, and Kim didn't have to ask where Bonnie was looking, because there was only one place that they could look. It was down the street where the greatest enemy that they had faced lay. Agent Smith had already gotten back to his feet at the instant that the three of them had looked. He peered at them, especially Ron, with such hatred that he seemed ready to lunge out and slay all three of them at once.

"Go, now!" Ron whispered hurriedly to his friends, "I'll be right behind you three, but now I have work to do here."

"Good luck, Ronald," Morpheus said as he quickly departed his company.

Ron gave all three of them one last glance from behind his sunglasses as they dashed down a nearby street towards the Smarty-Mart where Ron used to shop. He continued to watch them disappear out of his line of sight, but not before his wife gave a quick look back and he knew how sad she must have been because Ron "Neo" Stoppable felt it too, and so did the people who were inside him. All of the previous ones, Uno, Slim, Glitch, Inanna, Router, as well as Neo; they were all inside his head and he knew that they had experienced similar feelings as if history was designed to repeat itself.

"It is not beyond a measure of control." The Architect had told Neo in one of the memories that Ron had.

Ron looked at Smith in the middle of the street and it had all the side marks of an Old West showdown. Classic as well as clichéd but there was no denying it, the hero and the villain face to face.

"You…" Smith snarled at Ron, "You shouldn't still be alive!"

Smith dashed over the streets to his enemy like an arrow to the target. He was a few feet away when he cocked his fist back like the hammer of a gun and released it, bringing to bear all his hatred of humankind.

To Ron, however, it all looked so slow, like trying to play _City of Heroes_ on Windows 3.1. It was like before in how Ron was starting to anticipate Smith's moves. Even before Smith had brought his fist against Ron, Ron brought up his hand. He had caught Smith's hand as if it was a baseball and Ron held his hand there with a very smug look on his face. It then occurred to Ron that his powers had grown exponentially. So much power…so much, that for a brief second before coming back to the situation at hand, the Matrix seemed like an enormous playground to Ron where he could do whatever he pleased. There were bigger things at hand, but he was still feeling unstoppable.

"That's all you got?" Ron smirked at the frustrated Smith.

"Why you…" Smith growled, trying to pull his fist away from Ron's grip.

"I would love to beat you to a pulp right now, Smith." Ron told the Agent in a very as-a-matter-of-fact tone, "But the Sentinels are on their way, and I really don't fancy dying twice in one day. So I'll see you later."

Smith was about to make a sharp quip at Ron, but Ron brought up his leg and let go of Smith's hand only for a mere fraction of a second before his foot slammed into Smith's side. It's impact was so much that Smith's body actually began to ripple like the surface of a waterbed before he flew backwards down three city blocks. That gave Ron the opportunity to make quickly with his escape to the exit at the nearby Smarty-Mart.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Ron gasped as he opened his eyes, first hearing that odd noise of the jack spike being pulled out of him and being hung up near the jack chair. His vision was blurry at first, like coming out of a very deep sleep, but for Ron it was all gray at first until after a few blinks it all became clear. Looking up he saw the very surprised looks of Ghost, Niobe, Link, Barkin, Bonnie, Brick, Mister and Misses Possible, as well as his wife Kim "Angel" Possible. All of them looked as if Ron wasn't supposed to be there.

"What?" Ron asked, his face smiling, and asking jokingly, "You'd think I died or something?"

"RON!" The four voices of Bonnie, Misses Possible, Niobe, and Kim called out before smothering the blonde-headed husband in a sea of crushing arms.

"Ladies! Ladies!" Ron replied, relishing the attention, "I'm a one woman guy!"

Even though Ron had declared his monogamy, he still liked the attention he was getting from the other members of the fairer sex. As his mind lingered around the fantasies of being with more than one woman, he was instantly brought back to reality. He could feel something, like the soft boom of a passing car's sub-woofer, yet it wasn't as pleasant as that because Ron knew all too well what was coming.

"Kim…" Ron uttered.

"What is it, Ron?" Kim asked, seeing the pale expression on her husband's face.

"They're coming," Ron whispered.

"The Omega Sentinels," Barkin added, "Neo, what's their E.T.A.?"

Ron closed his eyes and in his mind's eye he could see it all so clearly as if he were there, floating above the surface of the Earth itself and spying upon the machines. He saw them, all of them, finished and their multiple, soulless, red eyes looking down a great hole. The first sentinel went, and the others soon followed behind. They swarmed down the hole like hornets, even having that slight buzzing sound as they flew. As far as Ron could see, the hole was narrow and filled with debris, but they still went, because they were machines; they had to follow orders.

Ron gasped once again as he opened his eyes.

"What'd you see, Ronald?" Morpheus asked

"They're taking a…hole…or a tunnel that's filled with debris," Ron reported.

"Must be one of the old mechanical lines," Niobe conjectured, 'More than likely the same one I piloted all those years ago."

"How long will it take for them to get here?" Barkin asked once again, but not sounding so stiff that time around.

"If they're going through a mechanical line," Niobe speculated, "then it'll slow them down severely. It'll probably take them two hours, maybe less."

"But wait," Ron pleaded as he got out of his chair, "I remember they drilled once before, why don't they do that again?"

Morpheus was quick to answer, "That passage was sealed off when the war ended, even though there was peace, Commander Locke didn't want to take any chances."

"Alright, people." Barkin stated, sounding as military as ever, "Let's not waste anymore time, we'll inform the Council and issue an evacuation order."

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

It's amazing how well people work when they're under pressure. The Inhabitants of Neo Zion certainly had proved that. The Council of Zion had been informed within a matter of minutes of the two crews exiting the Jack Room. Needless to say, they had agreed with the _Mad Dog_ and the _Neb Two_'s plan of action: evacuation. It was different from before. Back then, they had nowhere to hide but down in the temple, it seemed bad but good at the same time since they could leave Zion for the cities on the surface. They also knew that even if they stayed they would be facing sentinels armed with nuclear weapons as Ron had reported.

The other part the Council was thankful for was that there weren't as many people in Zion as there were with the last invasion. Still, the number of people in Zion and the number of ships in the dock was unbalanced, so the only way that the evacuation could be done was to cram people into ships like sardines in a can. Even though the hover ships were reasonably large, only a small percentage of people could fit in, but it is always human nature to forego everything for survival; comfort, pride, or anything else, so long as they can live, no price is too great.

In the dock of Neo Zion, every man, woman, and child were crammed, like refugees waiting to gain safe passage into a better place. Even though the place was still crammed, it did seem better in retrospect when it was backed up all the way into Trin Zion where people were getting on the first batch of ships to leave the city. The lines shortened as the ships left, until only the docks were still uncomfortably cramped with the hordes of people still trying to get passage to safety.

Amongst them, at the gangplanks of the _Mad Dog_, which was next to the _Neb Two_, was Ron "Neo" Stoppable, and Kim "Angel" Stoppable, along with the crews of the _Mad Dog_ and _Neb Two_, who were assisting in getting the refugees of Neo Zion onto their ships, and like a sold out concert the space in the remaining ships was filling up quickly. All the while, the crews of each ship were encouraging them to get on as quickly as humanly possible, but, as Ron got the next batch of Zion Refugees on board, he felt something much stronger than before.

He had often heard of dogs that could sense seizures or earthquakes long before they began, and he certainly felt something right then. An earthquake was upon Neo Zion, and the shockwaves of Sentinels were getting closer. He felt himself walk out into the middle of the dock as if he was sleepwalking, and he looked up to the super-cathedral high ceiling feeling the shockwaves growing more and more painful to his senses, his normal ones and the new ones that he was just starting to grasp. Standing there feeling the force coming, he felt like a man watching a tidal wave coming down upon him, all instincts told him to get moving, but he was just too overwhelmed to think, so he stood there as the earthquake crashed into Neo Zion.

There was a great bang at the door that sounded almost like a gunshot going off, but it wasn't just one, there were several. All of the bangs coming right after one another like a battering ram against a castle wall, and with each bang, the enormous steel gate shook, sending down dust and small, red clouds of rust to the ground. As they fell, all the Zion refugees stopped boarding the ships and watched while white sparks at random places in the gate flew out like fireworks.

"They're coming through." Ron thought aloud.

"Get to the ships!" Barkin's voice rang out over the silent and frightened crowd of Zionites.

Just like that, the refugees of Zion went from simply trudging onto the ships, leaving behind their homes to panicked and frightened masses that scrambled to the hover ships like cockroaches scurrying for shelter from the light. It was a funny thing about panic, Ron would remember later; it reduced all humans to animals willing to claw, scrape, and knock down whatever or whoever was in their way to get to safety. The refugees packed themselves into the ships with no need for instructions; they just got on the ships knowing that their lives were depending upon it.

As the refugees scurried to the ships, Ron still stood there in the middle of the dock looking at the gate, his new senses tingling like the first time that one wakes to sexual desire. It was fascinating and frightening at the same time; it felt as if he could hear the Sentinels' thoughts as they were cutting through the gates. In his mind's eye, he could also see them beyond that door, except it wasn't like before where it felt as if he was there; it was as if he was seeing into some normally invisible part of the ultraviolet spectrum and the Sentinels were made of light instead of metal. Everything else was black like the depths of an unused well, except for the sentinels that were made of that yellow, glowing light. It was beautiful, seductively beautiful, and it seemed like those times in the Matrix when Ron could see the codes that made it all up, but this was the real world, so why was he seeing it?

The question didn't matter as the chaos that consumed the dock was coming back to Ron and he felt a hand on his shoulder. As he turned to look, he half-expected Kim to be there, but instead it was Bonnie, and his vision returned to normal.

"Let's move, Ron!" Bonnie shouted over the confusion of noise from the panicked refugees.

Instantly, Ron had one thought, "Where's Kim?"

"Kim's okay," Bonnie reported while she tugged at Ron's arm, hoping that he would follow her, "Let's get out of here!"

Ron didn't think; he only acted from that point on. He followed Bonnie to the gangplank of the _Mad Dog_ where its crew were waiting, still getting the last of the refugees onboard. He looked around to see Barkin, Brick, as well as Mister and Misses Possible, but Ron still looked to his left to the _Neb Two_. There he confirmed what Bonnie had told him, Kim was all right, but she and the rest of the crew were already getting inside the ship just as the gangplank was closing. He didn't even see Kim turn around to see where he was, but as he watched the _Neb Two_ hover up and depart through the one and only opened gate that didn't have Sentinels at it, while Ron had snapped out of his daze. His heart raced when he dashed up the gangplank to catch up with Bonnie, Brick, and Barkin. Seeing that two crew members were missing, he stopped and turned around to see Mister and Misses Possible standing at the edge of the _Mad Dog_'s gangplank.

"Hey!" Ron called to them, "Let's get going, you don't wanna die today!"

Looking more closely, Ron noticed that their faces were oddly devoid of expression, but what made it worse was when Ron noticed tears running down their paling faces. As odd as it looked, the two of them had expressions that they had just seen the most frightening thing that they could. Then, it took an even more bizarre turn when he looked to see blood coming down their noses as well as the corners of their mouths.

"Mr. and Mrs. P?" Ron asked, fearful of what was going on with them.

Anne"Kazaa" Possible looked to Ron with her deep blue eyes and smiled in such a way that it just looked painful.

"Ron…" Anne Possible choked out, the blood spilling over her lips, staining her teeth, and dripping down her chin, "Take…care…of Kim."

He watched as Anne as well asJames Possible moved backward but not in the way as if they were walking backwards, it looked as if they were being pulled backward. It was then that Ron's vision had looked down to their mid-section and he saw a red spot in their clothes that was growing with each second that they were being pulled back. It wasn't a great stretch of the imagination to figure that they were bleeding, but the cause didn't show its head until Ron looked forward. All around the edges of the _Mad Dog_, Ron Stoppable saw waving tendrils, mechanical tentacles as if they were in the grasp of the octopus from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. He was frozen stiff as he watched the Possibles being pulled up like tiny morsels of food that the mechanical octopus was taking in for itself. That was when he looked to see the gigantic metal face of the Omega Sentinel, its red, camera aperture eyes opening and closing at different intervals as it gazed at Ron with cold intent.

The Omega Sentinel brought its head about as it tossed off the bodies of the Possibles over to the other side of the dock where they slammed like rag dolls.

That was when Ron snapped, seeing the people he felt were his second family, dead on the floor, all the rage, hatred, and anger came from within him like a volcano exploding.

"NO!" Ron screamed as he looked at the dead and pulverized bodies. He acted out of instinct once again; he looked at the Omega Sentinel who had outstretched its mechanical tentacles, looking ready to ram one of those arms through him. He brought up his hand to the sentinel, commanding the machine to stop and, of all the surprises that Ron was expecting, he could have never imagined what happened next.

The sentinel stopped. It just seemed to freeze in place while electrical sparks arced across its metallic shell into the red aperture eyes and down its tentacles. It shook and jittered like a massive malfunction and in that one second the sentinel shut down.

Ron looked at his hands in confused admiration for what he had done, or at least that's what he thought.

"Did I do that?" He asked himself before he heard a great metal screech that was just as ear splitting as Styrofoam rubbing together.

Hearing that sound, Ron dashed out from the gangplank of the _Mad Dog_ to gate three and saw the Sentinels peeling away parts of the massive metal gate like the rinds of an orange. The first sheet came away and the Sentinels poured into the dock through the bottleneck at the gate while some remained behind to widen the opening. As they came into the dock, they swarmed like wasps that had their hive disturbed. The first wave of Sentinels came down on the remaining ships as their first target.

Acting on instinct again, Ron raised his hand and commanded the sentinels to stop, and as he had hoped in the pit of his stomach, the sentinels dropped like flies. From a distance it seemed that once the first wave that came in, they had hit a wall that caused their circuits to literally fry and drop to the dock floor.

Ron didn't know how he was controlling it, but, as the next wave came through and the opening in the gate got larger, he felt overwhelmed. Each sentinel was a stab of pain in Ron's mind and he couldn't stop them.

"Ron!" Bonnie called while more of the Sentinels continued to drop like hail, "Get in here now! The Omegas could go nuclear any time!"

"I can't… fight it…" Ron grunted still holding his hand up to the sentinels, "There's too many of them."

Ron felt a pair of hands pulling him backwards; he had fallen slightly, but had quickly regained his balance. He looked to find Bonnie was trying to get him on board and get as far away from that place as possible. Even though there were so many, Ron wanted to stay and fight, if for nothing else than to avenge the deaths of the Possible parents, but Bonnie had other ideas.

"Your wife's going to need you, Ron!" She said pleading earnestly with him, "Don't make her lose you again today!"

Ron was quickly brought to this realization that it was not his day to die, at least permanently; he got back onto the gangplank with Bonnie who was standing there looking at something. Ron turned and found a group of Sentinels all standing on their little, tentacled feet, and in a circle around one who seemed to be…for lack of a better word…squatting. Its tentacles stretched out like the fingers of a hand while the head was bobbing up and down. It was on the third descent that the squatting sentinel had dropped something tall and slender. The sentinel that dropped it flew back up to join the others while the other sentinels stood guard around the tall, slim cylinder.

Looking more closely, they figured out what the object was.

"It's the warhead!" Bonnie screamed as she turned and called to the cockpit, "Captain Barkin! The bomb's been dropped!"

Barkin quickly responded, "Hang on to something! We're getting out of here people!"

Ron felt the jerk upwards as the _Mad Dog_'s gangplank closed up. He closed his eyes and in his new vision he saw the bomb. He tried to reach out with his mind to shut it off, but as his surprises for the day mounted, the bomb didn't shut off; he could only feel it counting down.

He opened his eyes, looked around the deck of the _Mad Dog_, at the multiple faces of the Zion Refugees who were asking with their eyes, _why couldn't you stop this? You're the One right?_ Ron dismissed their looks and headed to the cockpit where Captain "Kid" Barkin, Brick "Tater Salad" Flagg, Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller, and the ships operator, Sparks, were at.

"Sit down and strap yourself in, people!" Barkin stated, "We're hauling ass!"

Barkin took the controls and shoved them forward as hard as he could, sending everyone in the cockpit deeper into their seats, and Ron toppling backward. Thankfully, Ron was at the threshold of the cockpit and was able to grab the door frame with the tips of his fingers before getting back up to his feet. As he did, Ron could feel through the metal under his boots that the _Mad Dog_ was going full speed; he quickly got into one of the spare seats and strapped himself in.

"Where's the _Neb Two_?" Ron asked worriedly as he slipped the last strap over his shoulder.

"We don't know." Brick "Tater Salad" Flagg answered, "Last time we saw it, they were docked at Zion, but we don't know where it went."

The dashboard beeped, and, at the holographic projector, the crew of the _Mad Dog_ watched as it displayed the Omega Sentinels gathered in a circle around that cylinder.

Ron was quick to respond, he could feel the time getting close like a gun about to pop before a big race began.

"Everyone hang on!" He shouted quickly, "The bomb's about to blow!"

In Ron's vision, he saw it, a flash of golden light consuming anything and everything, even the Sentinels around it. It was like a supernova that sent out its radial glow leaving behind only the darkness that the light contrasted to. While on the _Mad Dog_, they felt the shockwave rumble and shake everything inside while the people desperately clung to whatever they could hold onto. The rumbling stopped, leaving the _Mad Dog_ to run its course at full speed.

Ron suddenly felt such pain in his heart as he closed his eyes and tried to see Zion again, but there was only collapsed rock, broken concrete, and fractured metal. All that had made up the dock only a few minutes ago.

"It's gone…" Ron uttered as he opened his eyes, the tears rolling down his face, "It's…it's all gone…"

"What is?" Captain Barkin asked.

"Neo Zion…" Ron answered as he cocked up on his tears, "It's gone…"

"Shit…" Brick had quietly cursed, "It's all over."

"No, it's not." Barkin stated, sounding more like a motivational speaker than a drill sergeant, "It's not over because we're still alive."

"He's right…" Ron added and stated prophetically, "Everything that has a beginning has an end, and for every end there is a new beginning…"

To be concluded in Matrix: Shutdown


	16. Shutdown Chapter 1

**The ****Kimmatrix****: Matrix Shutdown**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and ****Turles**

**Chapter 1: Black and White**

"_A bad beginning makes a bad ending."_

- Euripides

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

"What are the reports so far?" Captain Steve "Kid" Barkin asked his crewmate Brick "Tater Salad" Flagg as he continued to pilot his hover-ship, the _Mad Dog_, through the dark and debris filled tunnels that lay deep beneath the Earth's surface.

The _Mad Dog_ was flying in stealth mode, or to be more accurate, flying on as few pads as possible so as not to draw attention to themselves and bring about the Omega Sentinels.

It was hard to believe for the crew of the _Mad Dog_, along with the refugees that were still on board, that only two weeks had passed since the fall of Neo Zion. It was just like the death of someone close, but the pain was felt by everyone, and what made the pain worse was that with Neo Zion gone, a great question lingered over the crew and refugees of the _Mad Dog_. That question being: _what do we do now?_

"So far, most of the ships have reported in," Brick 'Tater Salad' Flagg reported to Captain Barkin, "Seems most made it out before Neo Zion went up. The only ships that have not reported in are the _Numbers, Goliath, Balthazar, _and the…the…_The Nebuchadnezzar Two._"

Ron "Neo" Stoppable heard that last name and got up out of his seat, headed for the door of the bridge. Thinking that the Neb Two was gone was too much to deal with along with the loss of Neo Zion. Not just because of Morpheus, Niobe, Ghost, or Link, but because of his wife…Kim "Angel" Stoppable.

"I'm sure they made it out alright, Stoppable," Captain Barkin tried to comfort Ron in a way that was not like him at all. Not like the Barkin that Ron knew in the halls of Middleton High, but as "the Kid" that Neo had saved all those years ago…or as Neo had put it, _he saved himself,_ "Morpheus is way too stubborn to go out that way, and your wife ain't 'bout to let you be a widow."

"Thanks," Ron answered weakly as he stepped out the door and looked out at the refugees sitting on the floor of the _Mad Dog_'s interior. Every one of them had laid down their hand made blankets of dirty colors while others had wrapped themselves up to protect them from the cold of the night. As Ron walked, some of the refugees looked up at him, silently asking their savior what he was going to do or why he couldn't stop the sentinels from destroying Neo Zion. That was when the very real fact came down on Ron's shoulders that, even with all of his powers in the Matrix, he was still human, a small human who couldn't even save one city. He never wanted to cry more in his life, but in that moment of perpetual despair in his head and the eyes of the Zion refugees, he had a thought. What would Kim do? That's when he came up with an idea; he went back to the bridge and looked at his shipmates.

"Are we at broadcast depth?" he asked.

"Sure," Barkin answered, "Just got there ten minutes ago, but why?"

"Log me in," Ron stated to the crew, "I think I can speak to the Architect or the Oracle and find out what's going on."

"You know we're not cleared to enter the Matrix, now that the war is back on," Barkin tried to reason with the boy, "It's suicide to go in now."

"I want to talk to them," Ron stated to Barkin coldly as if he was saying that he was going in with or without anyone's help.

"Okay…" Barkin had finally caved in to Ron's ludicrous request, "I'll set us down and you can have a few words, but we can't stay long."

"I'll only need a few minutes," Ron had reassured the _Mad Dog_ crew before he leapt out the door, over the refugees, and to the jack chamber.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

The skies in the Matrix were clear and sunny as Ron "Neo" Stoppable flew through them with the grace of an ice skater. He was high above the city, using his Anomaly abilities to part the clouds so he could look for the capital building. Knowing that the clock was ticking, it didn't take him very long to find it, and he was off with the speed of an errant thought to the concrete front steps of the building. The force with which he landed sent pieces of concrete flying in each direction like shrapnel from a grenade.

He wasted no time when he came to the glass paned doors of the building. He just shoved his hand outward and sent the doors flying off their hinges straight into the lobby itself. With the way cleared, Ron stepped in, and the army of security guards circled around, like vultures ready to scavenge.

"Stop him!" One of the security guards shouted.

"Freeze!" Another guard shouted as he and the multitude of security guards and S.W.A.T. team members pointed and cocked their guns at him.

"No," Ron answered back rather sarcastically.

No other encouragement was needed for the guards to open fire on Ron, and as they did, he held up his hand, and like flies to fly paper, the bullets stopped in mid-air. They kept coming until the guards had run out of ammunition, but not one came any closer than Ron wanted. Normally, Ron would have just allowed the bullets to fall to the ground, but he was pissed, and thought that what he was about to do was as good a way as any to blow off steam. The fire that burned in him from the loss of Neo Zion, the Neb Two, and especially Kim made him make the bullets and the shotgun pellets to turn on their axes and fly back at the guards and S.W.A.T. team members, sending every one of them falling over or flying backward until the One had nothing standing in his way, except the wait for the elevator.

Even the wait annoyed Ron so much that he decided to take an alternate route. He squatted downward, making the linoleum floor beneath his feet ripple before rocketing upwards through the ceiling, breaking through the concrete, wood, steel, and carpet as if they were cardboard. With each layer he broke through, he counted until he reached the thirteenth floor. There he stopped himself, floating over the hole that he had just created before gently setting himself down on the floor.

He again wasted no time in getting to the Architect's room, not even bothering to open the door in the conventional sense, such pleasantries were lost to him now; he reached up and with his foot and kicked the door open. It flew off its hinges like the front doors of the capital building, of course Ron could have just commanded it to happen, but he was just so pissed off, and kicking the door open was a form of release.

He walked into the wall-to-wall television screened room, neither noticing nor caring that his was the face plastered on every screen in the room, only caring about finding the program designed to look like an old man resembling Colonel Sanders. The Architect was in his usual place, seated at the center in his usual white suit with his pen in hand.

"I had a feeling you'd be back sooner or later," The Architect stated dryly.

"We need to talk," Ron growled as his anger, frustration, and hatred boiled to the surface.

"We have nothing to discuss," The Architect told him before reaching his finger up to tap the side of his pen, while the multitude of television screens played and replayed the destruction of Neo Zion. Every single one of them starting and stopping at random times as if each screen was a memory of one of the many refugees who witnessed its destruction. "It's over. You lost your battle and thus the war is over before it began. The Age of Man and the Age of the Matrix have ended. There is nothing you or anyone else can do to stop it."

Ron looked down at the Architect with such hatred and contempt for his arrogance. He squinted from behind his sunglasses at the number of television screens around him. The screens faded from their visage of Ron repeated in the background to a pure white screen. That was when they exploded, the shards of the thousands of glass screens flying out at both Ron, who was standing there as if nothing had happened, and the Architect, who was trying to cover himself for fear of injury in the most human of ways. All the while, Ron stood there, unmoved by what he was experiencing, and not even covering himself from the pieces of flying glass. The second that the debris had settled, the white light that had permeated from the floor and the ceiling had turned to a dark green similar to that of the Matrix code. The Architect then looked at Ron, very surprised by what had just occurred.

"Did you…" he asked, he started to ask, then stopped and restarted, "How did you do that? You shouldn't have any ability in this chamber?"

"I thought you would know what _we are_," Ron stated, his voice along with the voices of six other people speaking at once as if their minds had been linked to one but given six vocal chords.

The Architect's beady, blue eyes widened with the very emotion that the machines always had about the human race, but disguised it through their own logical actions: fear. Yes, the Architect was filled with fear by what he was seeing and hearing with his own senses while his mind tried to comprehend how in all the equations of the Matrix it was possible. That was when it had occurred to him what he told Neo and his five predecessors: the anomaly is systemic, causing imbalance in the most simplistic of equations.

"I think," Ron continued as his voice (or voices) came back to one; his, "that mankind's chances are greater than you expect, but I want to know why. Why do all this? Why now?"

"Why?" The Architect asked Ron; he closed his eyes and held them shut for a full five seconds before opening them back up again. His eyes then revealed how they had changed color from that pale blue to a hazel green that Ron had seen before, but it didn't stop there.

"Why not?" The Architect had asked; his voice had also changed with his eyes, a voice that Ron had heard before, but he had to be sure.

"Why not?" Ron asked, his voice cracking from how dry it had been from his shock about what he had witnessed.

"Indeed, why not?" The Architect asked, his voice still sounding different, but it also seemed to sound gruff, as Ron discovered an accentuation of his sounds, "You humans…, regardless of any religion, and in every part of the world, have constantly looked for the end of your world at the hand of specific gods per civilization. With the sky almost cleared from the damage you have done to it…we…no longer require you as a source of power, ergo, we will give you all what you have wanted from the beginning of your first civilization: you have the Alpha and we will provide the Omega."

"You will have to kill me first," Ron stated proudly, knowing that with what the machines had done, there wouldn't be very much to lose, "and I will _not_ make it easy."

"Apropos," The Architect stated with the most sinister of smiles that Ron had seen on that constantly neutral look he had, "That is entirely the sole purpose of reactivating the program Smith."

"What?" Ron asked about this new development.

"Do you not understand?" The architect asked, standing up from his leather chair and dropping his pen to the dark green floor, all the while, his suit was starting to change color from white to black. It had changed much in the same way as ink when it spills onto blank white paper, bleeding into it. At the same time, the Architect grew a few inches taller and his face was starting to change, becoming younger with the loss of his white hair and beard. "Do you know that even though a system has multiple parts, the core system is usually merely several parts of a whole, while some programs exist to themselves? Such are the Trainman, the Key maker, the Merovingian, the Oracle, and so on, but the core is one…in the same…we are all simply…"

Ron had watched in stunted horror as the Architect had completed his transformation, and in the dark green light Ron watched the face as the hair darkened, the beard receded, and the forehead wrinkled. By that point, the new form had reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of sunglasses and slipped them over his eyes.

"Me," The fully transformed Architect smiled sinisterly at Ron.

"Smith…" Ron snarled, with narrow eyes behind his sunglasses while he took a step back from the transformed program.

"Got it in one," Smith chimed as he congratulated Ron with his thick sarcasm, "Very good, Mister Stoppable. So tell me, how is the misses? Is she well? How about my old friend Morpheus?"

"You've been the Architect this whole time," Ron had deduced, hoping that Smith would hear the hatred he had in his voice for him.

"That hurts, Mister Stoppable," Smith frowned at Ron, "I merely wanted to talk a bit and you are blowing me off. That is quite rude even for you," Smith grinned at the boy, "but the answer is no. I wasn't the Architect, but it's amazing really…" he marveled at his own hands, thinking about he did it, "Assimilate one core program and I'm in…_the…whole…damn system!_ How cool is that?"

"What do you want, Smith?" Ron demanded.

"What do I want?" Smith repeated, but then, like a philosopher pondering the meaning of existence, asked "What does _anyone_ want? What do you want, Mister Stoppable? Kim Possible? Popularity? Power? To be the smiling sidekick again? What do you really want?"

"I asked you first," Ron answered back quickly.

"The answers are the same, Mister Stoppable," Smith stated while still smiling as sinister as he could be, "Have you forgotten that I am a part of you that was stripped away? We are the yin and yang, if you will, two sides of a coin that was chopped in half. I only want what you have always wanted. Though I do wonder why this urge to be with KP is still so strong, seeing how she treated us, or have you forgotten it since she started sleeping with you and took your last name?"

"Then why are you killing everybody?" Ron had asked with sincerity as if he was pleading for the lives of the entire human race, "I don't want that."

"But you do with for everyone around you to be happy, do you not, Mister Stoppable?" Smith had asked, trying to dig down deeper into the very core of Ron, "That's what I'm working towards."

Smith had then turned to Ron's right, to the door that was unopened. He was already a step away from it when he had stopped. He just stood there, not reaching for the door handle or making any single motion or action until:

"Just imagine it, Mister Stoppable," Smith began to wax like an idealist thinking of a bright and shining future, "everyone in perfect harmony…everyone a part of me."

Smith had reached for the door handle.

"Wait," Ron had stopped him, "We're not finished yet!"

"You're right," Smith agreed as he gripped the door knob, turned it, and opened it revealing only black emptiness beyond, "We are not finished yet, but we will finish our…discussion later…by the way…good luck in finding KP, Mister Stoppable."

It was that when Smith had stepped through the door and closed it behind him. For a small instant, Ron wanted to follow him to wherever he was going, but he stopped himself. It was because he thought to himself that there were bigger things to take care of and Ron knew exactly where those very important things were.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

It was night, and in the clouds over the city of Middleton, Ron "Neo" Stoppable flew above them, all of them splitting and parting like a snow blower on a black road. Once again, he pulled himself up to twirl around and, from his eagle's eye point of view, find his destination. With the target locked, Ron rocketed from his place above the clouds down through the sky above Middleton, down to the driveway of the Possible family home.

Quickly he stood back up from his squatting position that he took when he landed. He looked around, hoping he'd find some signs that Kim would be anywhere in that neighborhood, but there were no cars going by, no kids playing in the streets, and most of all, no signs of Kim. Ron couldn't even see the black sedan that Morpheus loved to use to travel around the Matrix. Never had he felt so terribly alone in his life, but seeing no tells of the _Neb II_ crew around, Ron decided to go into the house.

Oddly enough, the front door wasn't locked, and sensing no real danger, Ron walked inside. He came into the family room looking around to see that there was still not a single person to be found.

"KP?" Ron called, "You here?" He had called for Kim, much in the same way that a child does when their parents are missing or nowhere to be found at home. There was no answer, but Ron didn't exactly expect one; that would have been a real miracle if he had ever seen one, either inside or out.

Ron's vision had turned to the mantle over the fireplace where the Possible Family pictures lay in their unique frames. He came up to it and looked at each picture with the same nostalgia as someone looking through an old photo album and thinking about how good those old days were. Until his eyes came to one particular picture, it was a Christmas card from the year before with all the members of the Possible Family (including Ron) on it. There was Grandma Possible, Jim, Tim, Kim, and Mister and Misses Possible. As Ron looked at the picture and at how happy they all were he kept looking at the line on it, "Have a very Possible Christmas." He clanked from face to face, first to Kim, to his own, and then to the Possible parents and that was when their last words resonated deeply within Ron.

"Ron…take…care…of Kim," Misses Possible had told Ron that, and it replayed over and over again in Ron's mind like a scratched CD that was skipping.

"I promise," Ron whispered to the picture, hoping to the very pit of his breaking heart that the Possible parents would hear him, wherever they were. He laid his fingers over the picture while his tears dripped onto his hand as well as the picture itself, "I'll find her, and I'll take care of her…just like I told you…even if it _kills me._"

His eyes looked to the faces of Jim and Tim who looked as happy as ever, and probably were planning their own tom-fooleries while the picture was being taken. Seeing their faces had reminded why Ron had come to the Possible family home. He set the picture back onto the mantle before turning to the stairs and heading up to one of the bedrooms there.

He turned to the first door and walked into the bedroom of Jim and Tim Possible, the first thing that greeted his eye was the bunk bed that the twins had slept in and the two of them had woken up. They sat up together and rubbed their eyes together with the same motions and choreography as synchronized swimmers.

"Ron?" Tim asked half asleep.

"What're you doing here?" Jim continued, "Where are mom, dad, and Kim?"

"And what're you wearing?" Tim finished.

"I can't explain it all now," Ron answered as he raised his hand to the twins, "But I can tell you that you guys can't stay here alone."

His hand up, Ron watched, expecting to see what happened next, with the same synchronization, the twins' eyes rolled into the backs of their heads, and they fell back onto the bed. Ron twisted his hand so the palm was facing up, and watched as the twins rose up out of their beds and floated closer to Ron. He was like a magician performing tricks for his own amusement as he made the unconscious bodies of Jim and Tim follow him down the stairs, out the front door, and into the skies over Middleton to the only safe place that Ron knew.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

"Ronald Stoppable!" Misses Stoppable barked as Ron came through the front door.

Ron was carrying the twins over each of his shoulders as he carefully walked up the stairs to his old bedroom, while his mom continued to bark in the way all parents do. To him, though, it felt quite odd since it had been so long since he had been home. Of course, he made calls from outside the Matrix to his home to let his parents know that he was alright. Still, with the events of two weeks ago, Ron knew that his parents would want a very good explanation about what was going on, but first things first. He set the twins into his bed side by side with their backs facing each other, and while Ron tucked them in, his mother continued to rant and rave about how Ron should have done this, that, or the other. With the twins in bed, Ron had headed back down to face the proverbial music from his mother.

"Where have you been?" She kept on going with her rant never noticing that Ron wasn't staying to listen, "Why haven't you called, young man? And _what_ are you wearing?"

"It's a long story, mom," Ron had explained briefly, but then gave his requesting instructions, "please, take care of Jim and Tim."

Ron turned and was about to head out the door, but he was quickly blocked by his mother. Even though his mom hadn't reached the age yet, she was a master at what some may call "The Jewish Mother Act", at least in her own way. Some mothers used guilt and others used the tactic that Misses Stoppable was using: fear. She looked down at Ron with an icy stare that froze Ron's insides; in comparison Ron would rather face a thousand Smiths than endure…_the look._

"Oh no you don't, young man," Misses Stoppable had given her ultimatum when she looked at Ron, and then to the couch where Mister Stoppable sat watching the events unfold. She brought her attention to her son and continued her ultimatum, "You're not leaving _this _house at _this _hour of night _dressed_ like…like…that!"

"I can't tell you, mom," Ron tried to explain as he took off his sunglasses to look at his mother and father with such sincerity and honesty, "You wouldn't believe me if I had told you. There's no easy way to do this, so I'm asking you to trust me, because a lot is at stake."

Misses Stoppable looked into her son's chocolate brown eyes and she saw that he had changed in some fundamental as well as indefinable way. It was the kind of thing that a mother could sense in her son; he didn't seem as goofy as he was six months ago. She began to wonder what kinds of changes could have happened to her son while he was out with Kim Possible. Still, seeing that longing look in his eyes, she began to rethink her decision, but she had to ask.

"What kind of trouble did you get into, son?" Misses Stoppable had asked in that concern that a mother usually has.

"It's big, mom," Ron had explained while his father got off of the couch and came closer to his son, "It's really, _really big._ It's bigger than anything that Kim and I have ever been involved in, and it could mean…everyone…and everything."

Misses Stoppable reached out and placed her hands at Ron's shoulders and locked eyes with her son.

"Ronald…" She spoke softly, "I had a feeling that wherever you were, you and Kim would watch each other's backs, but please…please…be careful, son."

Ron smiled back at his mother and turned his gaze to his father who also gave that same comforting smile. He then turned his gaze to his mother.

"We'll watch the boys, but _please be careful,_" Misses Stoppable had repeated herself, hoping that her concerns would resonate with Ron, "Do what you have to do, but come back to us, okay son?"

Ron slipped his sunglasses back on his face.

"I'll do what I can, mom," Ron smiled at his mom as she looked at his parents from behind his sunglasses.

Misses Stoppable had stepped aside to let Ron have access to the front door as if telling him silently along with her verbal blessing that he could go. Ron gave his parents one quick glance before he spread out his arms and wrapped them around his mother and father in one last embrace. He then broke the embrace and headed to the door, but as he reached out for the door handle, he suddenly remembered a very important fact about Kim that he had to tell them. He smiled as he looked back to his parents with his hand still on the door knob.

"By the way," he smirked at his parents, "you two should know, Kim and I…we got married."

He walked out the door with only that little piece of information hanging over the Stoppable parents' heads. The two of them looked at each other with the very questions in mind that had leaked out of their mouths.

"Did he…s-say…the…_the M-word?_" Misses Stoppable had stammered as she came to grips with what her son had just told her.

"Yes, dear," Mister Stoppable gulped, "He did."

"Oh my goodness…" Misses Stoppable blinked, the color fading from her face, and her hand at her mouth from the shock, "I have a daughter-in-law…"

With that final revelation, Misses Stoppable's eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she fainted into her husbands arms.

To be continued…


	17. Shutdown Chapter 2

**The ****Kimmatrix****: Matrix Shutdown**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and ****Turles**

**Chapter 2: Lost**

"_A lost inch of gold may be recovered, but never a lost inch of time."_

- Chinese Proverb

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

"Sir, correct me…if I'm wrong," Link asked Morpheus from the co-pilot's chair while his hands maneuvered the Nebuchadnezzar Two through a dark tunnel filled with debris, concrete, reinforced steel, old rusted pipes, and other chunks of building materials, "But I don't think we're in the sewer system."

"That is correct," Morpheus stated numbly, looking straight forward as the Neb Two's lights poured into the dark abyss of the tunnel.

"So…" Link assessed the situation, "With navigation systems fried, we have no way of knowing if we're moving up or down."

"That is correct," Morpheus repeated, still looking into the black nothingness beyond the glass windows.

"So we're lost somewhere between the surface and the center of the earth," Link concluded, "basically, we're screwed."

"That is correct," Morpheus repeated himself not, changing his tone at all.

"Do you have any idea how unsettling that is, sir?"

"I have a fairly good idea." Morpheus responded with a twinge of optimism in his voice.

"Good," Link shrugged as he continued to pilot the Neb Two through the darkness of the tunnel.

It had been two weeks since the Fall of Neo Zion, and the Neb Two was the absolute last ship that had made it out before the Omega Sentinels had detonated the bomb. Unfortunately, their close proximity to the blast zone had fried a good amount of the circuitry in the ship. Luckily, the ship was still operational enough to handle flight, but the situation was growing dire. Not only were the ship's navigation and communications systems fried, but they were carrying a good few hundred Zion refugees onboard. To make the situation even worse, their food supply was running short and it was getting worse by the day. Needless to say, the crew of the Neb Two felt that it was imperative that they find a way to the surface, with or without the navigational system. Even though it seemed like the most impossible and daunting task, Morpheus would be the one to say that they've faced the impossible before.

The opening of the bridge door was hailed by a metallic clank followed by the long screech that came with the poorly oiled hinges rubbing against one another. In walked Ghost and Niobe, both of them dirty, sweaty, and clothes stained with oil and whatever else had been spilled onto them.

"Sir," Ghost began his verbal report while wiping the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve, "The broadcast system is back online but it looks like either we're not at broadcast depth or the machines are blocking access to the Matrix on this level."

"Both are possibilities," Niobe had guessed, "But we really need to get to the fleet soon… and with the Neb Two as it is…I don't know how long we'll be able to last on our own."

Niobe's and Ghost's report had started to sink in amongst Morpheus and Link, and the situation seemed to have gone from bad to worse. In the old days, Morpheus would probably have said that fate was trying to test them to see how long they would be able to survive under such conditions. After all, it was always within human nature to try and survive, even more so for the crew of the Neb Two since they had people counting on them. It would be just fine if it was just the crew, but a small fraction of Zion's population? That only seemed to compound the idea of how bad things had truly gotten.

"Oh God!" A gagged call came from the hallway.

The crew on the bridge looked through the open door and saw a gray and orange blur that looked suspiciously like Kim Stoppable dash across the main deck and over the refugees with one hand over her stomach and one covering her mouth. It was obvious she was going to be sick, the only question was whether or not she would make it to the bathroom.

"Here we go again…" Niobe sighed as she shook her head. "I'm gonna go check on her."

Niobe stepped off the bridge and went down to the main deck to the only bathroom that Kim could have gotten to in the hurry that she was in. The door to that one bathroom was open, slightly, only enough for Niobe to see the back of Kim. Her butt and legs in a position that said that she was down on her knees with her face directly into the toilet's basin. Niobe stepped up and tapped the metal door.

"Kimmie?" she called, "You okay?"

There was no answer from the bathroom, at least vocally, there was only the sound of a wet splattering, which told Niobe all she needed to know. It was soon followed by Kim's coughing and sickly moaning.

"Take that as a no," Niobe answered her own question as she reached to the metal door and gave it a light shove. She looked into the bathroom to see Kim pulling herself away from the toilet to sit on her ankles, her face just simply a mess. Her eyes tired and still having tears running down them from the force of her vomiting. She reached up and used her sleeve to wipe away the saliva and extra vomit that clung to her lips.

"I wish this stomach bug would make up its mind," Kim moaned, "Coming or going, I'm getting sick of getting sick."

No sooner than she gave that statement, her stomach turned. She placed a hand over her stomach, the other over her mouth as her cheeked pouched out, and went straight back to the toilet where she gagged and deposited what was left in her stomach into the toilet bowl. With Kim's face in the toilet, Niobe went to the nearby cupboard, took out one of the small washcloths, ran it under some cold water, and waited for Kim to finish. It took a couple of good gags before Kim was done, and as she tried to finish, Niobe sat down beside her and rubbed Kim's shoulders. She had a very good idea of what was wrong with Kim and it certainly wasn't a stomach bug.

Kim had pulled back once again, looked at Niobe through her teary eyes, saw the damp cloth and used it to wipe her face and lips.

"Feel any better?" Niobe had asked Kim sympathetically. It was oddly funny since in the past six months; Niobe had seen Kim in so many different ways. She had seen the cocky teen hero, Kim, the lonely girl who had lost her best friend to another woman, Kim, the woman in love, and now Kim the sickly. Through all those different lights, she had come to think of Kim, not only as her daughter, but also as an adopted sister.

"Yeah…" Kim had answered Niobe's question before coughing into the washcloth, "A bit…but now I'm feeling a bit hungry."

"You really are something else, Kimmie," Niobe smiled at her adopted sister/daughter before helping her up to her feet, "Come on, let's get you some food."

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

That night the crew, along with the volunteer help of the Zion refugees, worked to try and stabilize the damaged hovership. Yet, whenever they thought that something was fixed, something else would break down. While some of the volunteers had given up, the crew of the Neb Two continued on simply because they had to. Their survival had depended upon it, and danger, it was said, focused the mind. Ideally, Morpheus wanted the ship to work just well enough to get into the Matrix and hopefully find someone to rescue them. That someone, as Morpheus wanted it to be, would have to be Ron. If he was in there, then he would feel them through the code of the Matrix and they would be saved.

Morpheus had thought about this ideal rescue in the late hours of the night on the bridge of the Neb Two. It was his turn to keep watch for Sentinels or any machines that could give away their position. He knew that he and his crew already had enough problems without these new Omega sentinels making things worse.

The metal door behind him had sent out that clanging saying that someone was fixing to enter. Morpheus turned to see who was there and saw Kim Stoppable, who seemed to have regained some color in her face after being so sick that morning.

"You okay, sir?" Kim asked, worried about her captain's condition, given what had been going on in the past few days.

Morpheus looked at the girl…no, the term 'girl' no longer applied to Kim Stoppable. She had grown up so much in the past half-year since she and Ron were freed from their dream life inside the Matrix. Kim Stoppable was no longer a girl; she was a young woman.

"I should be the one asking you that," Morpheus smiled wearily at the young woman.

Kim walked up to Morpheus' side and looked out the windows of the Neb Two's bridge.

"It'd be better if…" Kim drifted off, leaving her sentence open.

"If _he_ was here," Morpheus completed Kim's sentence. He reached up and placed his aged hand upon Kim's shoulder, "I know, Kimberly. You two have never really been apart...at least not for this long…it must be hell for you."

Kim replied with a nod to Morpheus' sympathy, before adding, "I'd be better if I knew if he was okay."

"I'm certain that he is alive, well, and searching for us as we speak, Kimberly." Morpheus sighed as he took his hand from Kim's shoulder and brought it back to his lap.

"How can you be sure he's okay?" Kim asked. Her voice was trembling slightly, but she tried to fight it as best as she could, "Because he's the One?"

"No," Morpheus answered, shaking his head, "although that does ease some of the worry. It is because if I was in his situation and separated from Niobe, even death would fear taking me before I found her."

"You think Ron and I will make it through this?" Kim asked as she sat down in the co-pilot's seat. "It's weird; I've never been worried about stuff like this before. This isn't the first time Ron and I have been in a world saving situation, I mean, we've done it for years. Might have been in the Matrix, but it was still real to us. It always seemed real, but this time…maybe because we've both physically died…it all seems too real now…and it's frightening."

"Kimberly, I'm not going to lie to you," Morpheus boldly stated, sounding like the father that he was, "I had every expectation that, even after the truth about the prophecy came out, today I would be spoiling Neo and Trinity's children as if they were my grandchildren. I was wrong… the one thing I am certain about is that Neo and Trinity died without regret and, even in death, their love changed the course of the war. Treasure the moments you had together, but do not grieve thinking that there will be no more…because it will take ten thousand times the number of sentinels up there and the Armies of Hell besides to stop Ron from trying to get to you, and you…to him. Also, I have no doubt both of you are more than the Machine forces can handle."

There was that moment of silence that accompanies any enormous speech that an adult gives to a young person. The silence was the elder generation allowing the younger to let the advice sink in. Especially in this case, since, in Kim's mind, there was the very real possibility that she may never see Ron again. Though Morpheus knew that could not happen, not only for Kim, but quite possibly for the future of the human race. He looked over at Kim and smiled; he didn't know why he did, but he forced himself to lose his smile when he asked his next question.

"Kimberly," Morpheus began, still trying to hide his smile in anticipation of Kim's response to his question, "have you and Ronald ever discussed having a family?"

"What?" Kim quickly asked. Her expression was that of curiously surprised shock before she started stammering and blushing bright pink, "N…no…no…"

"I am merely making conversation, Kimberly," Morpheus explained, still fighting back a small giggle, seeing as how Kim's response was just what he had expected.

Kim had since calmed down slightly, "We were only married a week, the last time we were…together…and um…" Kim paused before starting back up again, "I used to swear I'd never be a mother. Once, when we were still plugged in, my dad busted his leg and he asked me to coach the Tweebs' soccer team. I was just terrible, making the kids' play as if their lives depended on it. To tell the truth, I used to hate children…with a passion."

"But now?" Morpheus asked.

"With Ron… it's different," Kim had explained, "It's…I…I've seen him with kids, Morpheus, I've seen him with your kids. Actually, during that whole coaching episode, Ron was the one that kept trying to make me see that winning wasn't everything, and the kids' just wanted to have fun. Being the Kim I was back then, I agreed that winning wasn't everything, it was just the only thing that mattered, at least to me. I know that Ron wants to be a father more than anything. I can read it in his eyes. After this is all over…I want to help him become one…and after seeing Niobe with Trin and Neo…I…kinda wanna try my luck too."

"That's good to hear," Morpheus said as he stood up from his pilot's seat, "I'm certain you and Ronald will be excellent parents."

"I can't wait 'til it happens and I get to see mom's face when I tell her she's going to be a grandma," Kim smiled dreamingly, just imagining the possibilities, "I can just see her flipping out already."

"And if I've learned anything from your father," Morpheus added to Kim's small dream, "Say the p-word and he'll long to make you a widow."

"That'd be dad alright," Kim laughed.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

"Oh God…" Kim moaned as she sat up in bed, her stomach turning over and over into itself as if it were dough being kneaded. She laid one hand on her stomach and the other over her mouth, "Oh Jesus…"

She already knew what was coming, so the moment she felt her stomach turn, she got right to her feet and bolted out the door. She dashed down the hall dodging wiring and pipes, and skirting the sleeping Zion refugees on her way to the bathroom. All the while Kim still managed to hold her hands over her stomach and mouth; as she gagged out the phrase that had awakened all those on board the Neb Two:

"Get the hell out of the way!" followed by the slamming of a door, and the depositing her stomach contents into the toilet basin.

This had been the typical morning routine aboard the Neb Two for the past couple of weeks, Kim getting up to vomit, and the commotion that she usually caused woke up most of the refugees along with the crew. Though that particular morning was a little different.

It was different for Captain Morpheus, who, woken by Kim's commotion, got up, making sure not to disturb his wife in the bed next to him, and headed to the bridge and try once again to tackle the problems at hand for the crew.

He was still rubbing the sand out of his eyes when he reached the bridge and was greeted with a very unusual sight. He found Link, Ghost, and his daughter, Trinity, standing around and giggling to themselves like Junior High School kids desperately trying to keep straight faces while listening to the lectures in sex ed class. Morpheus had then awakened completely when his eyes had met this sight and he went into his captain mode (with a hint of his fatherly behavior mixed in for Trinity) as he looked at his crew members.

"I do not know what you two have done to my daughter," Morpheus had stared down both Ghost and Link, "But I am well aware that it is, more than likely, not at all good. If so, it will lead you to scrubbing the toilet after Kimberly is finished with it."

Even under the prospects of such punishments, Ghost and Link still had managed to keep the grins on their faces.

"So you better tell me what you have done," Morpheus stated his ultimatum, but oddly enough under such conditions he was still able to keep his calm philosopher's tone about him, "Before I make you two do it without a towel or brush."

"We did nothin', Cap'n," Link chuckled, "Trin here did everything."

"And what exactly is 'everything', darling daughter?" Morpheus said, turning his attention to Trinity, who was carrying that same smug look that her mother would have when she knew that something really good had happened.

"I fixed it," Trinity had reported to her father as if it was some kind of prize that had meant the entire world to her. She stepped over to the console that sat between the pilot's and co-pilot's seat. She reached out and pressed a button, and from the console came a holographic projection of the surrounding area. It sat there in blue holographic wire frame, spinning around, and zooming out to plot its course in a yellow line through the pipes above them.

Morpheus came closer to the console seeing how it was working as if it had been just installed. He kept darting his vision from his smug, smiling daughter to the operational navigation system. He was just trying to grasp the reality of it; that his daughter, who was no older than twelve, had done in one night what his crew couldn't do in two weeks. That was when he felt a great swelling of pride in his heart as he turned around and went straight to the door of the bridge."

"NIOBE!" He called out to his wife.

It was less than half a minute before Niobe came out from the corridor carrying Kim Stoppable in tow, one arm over her neck and her other arm around her waist. Kim was looking as pale as the white paste that they'd always eaten, and looking so weak that a puff of air from someone's lips could knock her over.

Morpheus looked at his wife and stated proudly, "Look at what _my _daughter has done!" His pride swelling to such a crescendo that he was giving Trinity a tight, nearly bone crushing, hug. "We'll be able to contact the others through the Matrix in less than four hours."

Niobe had looked to her husband, to the fixed navigation console, and then to her daughter whom she developed a thin smile at. She then looked at her husband remembering what he said, praising "his" daughter. She then grew a slightly peeved look at him.

"_Your_ daughter my ass…" She said to Morpheus sarcastically, "_I_ carried her, so _she's mine._ _You _wanted a son…and _you_ got him…_she's my daughter._"

"How about I be both yours and daddy's daughter?" Trinity had asked, before stating with a captain's determination, "Let's go find Ronnie so Kim can stop sulking all the time."

"You hear that, Kim?" Link asked, smiling away in the joy that they would finally be getting somewhere while he pulled Kim into a hug, "We're gonna get you back to your husband quick, fast, and in a hurry."

"Yeah…that's great…" Kim moaned as she swayed back and forth with her hand on her stomach. She looked extraordinarily pale, even with this supposed stomach bug she had. She then looked up at Link she moaned, "Link…let me go before I…"

It was too late for Link. He didn't have a quick enough reaction time to get away from Kim when it happened. He did let go of her, but was less than a foot away when Kim lunged forward, mouth open and the white paste came up her throat and onto Link's shirt.

Only half a minute later, Trinity had something to say about the disgusting event.

"At least we know she ate," she shrugged.

"Yes," Link agreed, rather disgusted, "And now it's on me….now I'm going to get…get cleaned up…"

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Inside the Matrix, the crew of the Mad Dog was in New York City at Central Park, right at the very statue of Alice silently frozen and talking philosophically with the caterpillar perched on his mushroom and smoking the hookah. A few feet away from the statue of Alice and the Caterpillar, Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller looked up to see Ron coming down for the landing like a bird dressed in a duster.

"Any luck?" She asked Ron, hoping that he would deliver good news that someone was found.

"No sign of the Oracle anywhere," Ron had reported, his tension and worrying showing through his voice, "And Wade isn't picking up the Kimmunicator's signal either and I figured he could have at least told me where the Oracle is."

"What'd he say when you asked?" Steve "Kid" Barkin asked of Ron.

"He told me that his mother is a very unusual woman," Ron shrugged, "Though…I _don't_ think that Smith has her."

"Why'd you say that?" Brick "Tater Salad" Flagg inquired.

"Smith had said some programs were still in on the system…" Ron repeated the one line in the conversation, "And I'm pretty sure that the Oracle broke from the main system around Neo's time."

"Where could she be?" Bonnie had asked in a rhetorical sarcasm.

"That's what's buggin' me," Ron answered as he shook his head, "I figured she'd show up considering what's been going on outside…but…it's like…"

"Like what?" Bonnie asked as she stepped closer to Ron, placing a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

"It's like…" Ron tried to answer, but had trouble grasping the right phrase, "Like…she's avoiding me…"

"We have to keep trying," Bonnie told Ron, trying her best to be supportive even though she seemed to be the least likely person to even be remotely supportive. She then took her hand off of Ron's shoulder, which drooped with his posture in his despair coming to meet with the growing feeling of hopelessness.

Then something hit Ron like a bolt of lightning that had spread through every nerve in his body. His posture had straightened right up until he looked as stiff as a flag pole. At first he turned his head, which was followed by his upper body and then the rest followed behind.

The crew of the Mad Dog had seen it all happen, each of them had the same question, but only Barkin had asked it.

"What is it, Neo?" He asked.

Ron didn't hear Barkin's question; he felt himself stretching out with his new senses like the fingers of a hand trying to reach a high shelf. He continued to stretch as far as he could. He knew that something had changed in the code of the Matrix. It might have been another ship's crew or it might not have, but he had to know. His senses took his vision all the way to the other side of New York City, to a pair of green eyes…a red coat…and red hair…

"KP!" Ron shouted as he quickly squatted down, making the stone and asphalt beneath him ripple like loose pancake batter and he rocketed up to the sky like a cruise missile covered in black.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

On the other side of New York City, Morpheus and the crew of the _Nebuchadnezzar Two_ stepped out into the old and dingy alleyway in a deserted and dilapidated part of the city. It had only been a minute or so since they had entered the Matrix, and with a nervous hand and his heart in his throat, Morpheus pulled out his cell phone.

"Let's hope there's someone out there," Morpheus thought to himself; it wasn't exactly something he wanted to say aloud since the crew was edgy enough as it was.

The others listened as Morpheus waited for someone on the other end to pick up.

"Sparks!" Morpheus shouted out with such joy and happiness that it felt as if he was about to break out a verse of _Hallelujah Chorus_, "You have no idea how wonderful it is to hear from you…the Neb Two is heavily damaged, but we made it this far, where's Captain Barkin?...Alright…so they're on their way…"

Morpheus turned to Kim and smiled in a way that made Kim look at him rather confused.

"And one in particular is moving quicker, yes…" Morpheus continued the conversation, "Yes, I am well aware that his abilities are murder on the Mad Dog's code scanner…very well…we'll be waiting."

Morpheus closed his cell phone and placed it back in his pocket, signaling for Ghost and Niobe to step away from Kim. Thankfully Kim wasn't looking at them; she was leaning against the nearby brick wall of the building and watching the sky. Perhaps, she still felt a little sick from that morning or perhaps she was just trying to recover from it. As she leaned against the wall, she looked down and saw that everyone had backed away from her, but before she could even ask why, a sonic boom echoed in the skies above.

Instinctively, the crew of the Neb Two looked up to where the sound was coming from. Kim looked up to the sky and watched as, within a matter of seconds, a black dot in the sky had rocketed down to the ground where Kim stood. Her first thought was that it was going to crash into her, but, to her surprise, the thing had embraced her. It all happened so fast to Kim, she had closed her eyes and was waiting for the impact when the pair of arms had wrapped around her and dragged her off into the stratosphere. The collision had knocked some of the wind out of her lungs, but as she tried to breathe, instead of air, she felt a pair of warm lips pressing against hers. She would recognize that kiss anywhere; she wrapped her arms and even her legs around the one and only person she had loved more than ever. When she returned Ron's kiss, it felt as if her lips were on fire against his, but she didn't care, for if Ron was a fire, she would gladly burn in his flames.

The crew of the _Neb Two_ watched as Ron took Kim into the air, kissing her as he went, and then came floating back down to hover a few inches off the ground as they continued the impromptu make-out session, until Morpheus had broken it up.

"Ahem!" He cleared his throat, hoping to gain their attention.

Kim and Ron broke the kiss and looked at their friends with red faces of their embarrassment. Without making a small apology, Kim and Ron came down to the ground from their literal cloud nine.

"I see you made it out in one piece, Ronald," Morpheus said to Ron as his and Kim's feet touched the ground. Though once they got to the ground, the two of them couldn't keep their hands or their lips off of each other. Then again, who could blame them? Only married for a week and then separated for two. They started to hug and kiss once again.

"That's great to know," Morpheus spoke sarcastically as the newlyweds continued to make out, "We made it out fine too."

Down the alleyway, the Neb Two crew heard the sound of a car engine coming closer, and, sure enough, Morpheus smiled seeing the black sedan that belonged to the crew of the Mad Dog. The sedan's doors opened and, in unison, came the members of the crew; there was Brick "Tater Salad" Flagg, Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller, and Captain Steve "Kid" Barkin. They came down the alleyway, smiling away at the Neb Two crew. At least most of them were smiling. Bonnie was trying to avoid looking at Kim and Ron, and not in the usual, angry-jealous way that she used to have back in their high school days. It was just that the two of them were so happy to be with one another and the happiness in those two tore at her heart like some great, mythological beast.

"Great to see everyone from your group made it out in one piece, Morpheus," Barkin nodded at Morpheus and the rest of his crew.

"If my ship was in better shape, it would have been a little more bearable," Morpheus replied, looking over at the Sedan and expecting Napster and Kazaa Possible to come out of the car and down the alley to meet with them. Morpheus went numb from the inside out as his heart sank to the ground. Napster and Kazaa Possible did not come out of the car, nor did they come down the alleyway. They were nowhere to be found.

"Hey," Kim called the attention of the Mad Dog crew, "Where's my mom and dad? Are they back on the Mad Dog? They weren't hurt were they?"

The sound of that question made the Mad Dog crew go deathly quiet. They knew the truth, but it would be too terrible to bear or to tell, and so that responsibility fell onto the shoulders of Kim's husband, Ron "Neo" Stoppable.

"KP?" Ron asked as he took his wife's hand into his own, giving it a gentle squeeze, his voice stammering as the horrible memory replayed in his head over and over like a bad nightmare that refused to go away, "Let's…let's go…for a little walk, okay?"

Ron led Kim down the street, noticing a bus bench advertising the anti-depressant Zoloft on its back. He smiled ruefully at the coincidence. 'Fitting.', he thought.

"Ron, tell me," Kim commanded as she glared at her husband, her mind running through what could have happened to her parents, "Where are my parents?"

Ron reached up and pulled off his sunglasses with a deep sigh. He looked to his wife, with whom he had only just reunited a few minutes previous and felt how unfair life was when he knew what news had had to deliver.

"KP…" Ron said to his wife as he placed his hands on her shoulders, "You might…wanna sit down…."

To be continued…


	18. Shutdown Chapter 3

**The ****Kimmatrix****: Matrix Shutdown**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and ****Turles**

**Chapter 3: Trinity**

"_We write our destiny…we become what we are."_

- Madame Chiang Kai-Shek

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

"You're lying…" Kim's voice had trembled as the horrible news that Ron had to deliver registered with her, but she refused to believe it was true and she looked at anywhere else around her, the streets, the car, the sky…anywhere except at her husband, Ron.

"You don't know how _badly_ I want to be, Kim," Ron stated with a sigh, his voice trembling as well, trying with all that he could to hold back his tears, "They're gone…I tried…I really tried to save them, KP…but there…there was nothing I could do."

"Bullshit…" Kim stated firmly at Ron, calling him a liar to his face. Her look was enough to possibly frighten Agent Smith himself, Ron could see in her emerald eyes the way they resonated with anger, denial, hurt, and sadness. "I died and you saved me…why couldn't you save them?"

"If I could, I would have, KP," Ron had replied with the scene of Mister and Misses Possible's death playing over and over again in his mind. He tried his hardest to shut it out but the memory still kept coming at him. He reached his arms out to Kim, hoping she would come closer to hug him. Instead, she moved herself further down the park bench, widening the chasm between them.

"You know that my powers are different in and out of the Matrix," Ron had tried to explain why he couldn't and felt evermore powerless. He could feel his own tears roll down his face despite his fight to hold them back, "All the power in the Matrix and I couldn't save them…_I'm sorry, Kim. You don't know how sorry…_You know that they were like my own parents as well."

"Sorry, Ron," Kim had apologized to her husband in a very unconvincing manner, still silently refusing to look at him in the eye. Maybe it was because if she looked she could see him crying and that would solidify the reality of her parents' death, "it's just really…a big shock…give me time to process all of this…okay?"

Kim still didn't look at her husband's face, but she could guess that he was nodding at her request.

"I guess I'll go back to the others," Ron stated.

Kim then turned to look at him to find that he had already gotten off of the bus bench and was about to head off down the alleyway to meet with the crews of the Mad Dog and the Neb Two. It had become too much for Kim. Quickly, she got off the bench and to her love and wrapped her arms around his waist while she laid her head against his back.

Ron, feeling the tightness around his waist, it became too much for him as well, he turned around to face Kim. With her head against his shoulder, he wrapped his arms around her. He felt safe in those arms, and she gave him silent permission to cry. He brought his face next to Kim's and kissed her cheek.

"We'll get through this," Ron sniffled, "And I'll make those bastards pay for what they've done."

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Back in the alleyway, the crews of the Mad Dog and the Neb Two looked to see Kim and Ron coming back to meet with them. They looked sympathetically at the couple, having since spread the fate of Napster and Kazaa Possible to those that didn't know. Ron had his sunglasses back on, and so did Kim, probably to hide their tears. They walked up to the group with Kim clinging to Ron's arm for support.

Ron cleared his throat.

"So, what's the game plan, Morpheus?" Ron had asked.

"The Mad Dog's going to join the fleet at Jericho," Morpheus had reported, "The Neb Two should head there as well for repairs and to drop off the refugees from Zion that we're carrying."

"Stoppable," Barkin called to Ron, "I mean…Neo. The people at Jericho will need you more than we do. Since Commander Locke was a casualty in the evacuation, the people will look to your for leadership."

"What will you be doing?" Ron had asked Morpheus.

"We'll find out what the machines are up to in the Matrix," Morpheus had answered.

"And Smith?"

"We'll be careful to avoid him at all costs," Morpheus had assured Ron, "but the more important issue is to get you to the fleet. They'll need you more than ever to lead them."

"But…but," Ron stammered, "I can't lead them…how am I supposed to?"

"I know this," Morpheus said, stepping closer to Ron and placing a supportive hand on his shoulder, "Because the Oracle had told me…exactly what I needed to hear. She told me that when the time came, you would know what to do to lead us to peace."

"We'll be okay, Ron," Kim had backed her captain up as she gave her husband's hand a gentle squeeze, "I believe in you."

"So while the Mad Dog and the Neb Two head to Jericho, what're you going to do?" Ron had asked Morpheus.

"The only thing we can," Morpheus answered, "We're going to talk to the Merovingian."

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

At the Merovingian's restaurant, the crew of the Neb Two came out of the elevator with the determination of people on a mission. They never gave a look to anyone along the way to the server's podium. When they got there, they were met by a bleached blonde woman with abnormally tanned skin and overly scrawny figure, she looked like a Barbie doll that had been grown to full size and given some form of life.

"Hello!" The Barbie woman greeted the Neb Two crew, her voice high and irritating like a California Valley Girl. Kim was half expecting her to use the word 'like' in every other word in her sentence, instead she had to endure, "Like, do you have an appointment?"

Kim had answered back quickly to that annoying voice with a leap nearly five feet into the air, and flying roundhouse kick to the side of the Barbie girl's head. As the valley girl server hit the black, shining floor, Kim landed back on her feet and looked to her crewmates.

"Subtle much, Kimberly?" Morpheus asked, laying out his own sarcasm, while he drew his weapons, seeing as how they were going to be met by the Merovingian's guards.

"So I'm cranky," Kim snapped at her captain while she popped her knuckles.

From around the corners and from within the restaurant at least fifty men appeared, all armed and ready to shoot on sight. Yet, before they could even cock their guns and take aim, Kim had already started kicking ass. She was a force of nature as she kicked, punched, swiped, chopped, head butted, and body slammed all the men that were coming from the restaurant. The fight (if it could be called that) was over in nearly a minute after Kim had made a flip kick to the last man's chin, sending him flying onto his back while Kim landed back on her feet. Meanwhile, the Neb Two crew watched in bewildered wonderment at what Kim had done.

"Ahhhh. That felt good!" Kim smiled happily as she stretched.

"Damn…" Ghost uttered to himself while looking around at the unconscious and injured men of the Merovingian's.

"Well, that was a waste of gun programs," Niobe commented.

"Now for the frog," Kim stated with the same kind of pumped up emotion like when she wanted to kick ass as bad as the men on the floor.

While she led the way, Ghost had leaned over to Niobe and whispered:

"Remind me not to piss her off, ever," He stated, worried that his ass would be next.

"That makes two of us," Niobe had answered back.

The Neb Two crew moved about through the Merovingian's Restaurant, but were instantly stunned. There was not a single person sitting down to enjoy the French cuisine that the restaurant served. Not only were there no people in that restaurant, but all the tables and chairs were gone, the room that was once an elegant dining hall seemed as bare as the day the place was finished.

Looking around, they quickly saw the only thing that was remaining in the restaurant: a long table at the far end of the room. The Neb Two crew expected to find the Merovingian sitting there sipping wine and having that arrogant smirk on his face. Instead they found his wife, Persephone, sitting there alone.

They weren't there to ask what had happened or why Persephone was in the restaurant by herself; they needed information. The four of them came directly to the table and looked at Persephone from behind their sunglasses.

"Where's the Merovingian?" Morpheus has asked in a stern demand.

"My husband is not here," Persephone answered as she stood up, "He is one with Smith now, but there is something I wish to discuss with Kim…_Stoppable…_"

"What about?" Kim asked, being very snippy about her question.

"Come with me," Persephone instructed as she headed off to the left of the long table she was sitting at.

Kim followed, probably of her Blue Fox nature. She couldn't resist something as challenging as what was happening. Simply put, she just wanted to know what Persephone was going on about. She watched as the elegant wife to the Merovingian pulled out her ring of keys before she came to the simple set of double doors. After she had turned the key and opened them, the Neb Two crew was not surprised when they found themselves in such a different surrounding. That's what happens after years of fighting in the Matrix, it's learned not to be too surprised at certain things.

They had arrived in a vast room, one that was almost like a library with desks and tables in the middle of the room, while at the end there were two levels where there were rows upon rows of books. The last detail that caught their eyes was on the walls, between the double doors and the split level library at the end, the walls were covered with pictures. They weren't exactly paintings that one would expect to find in a library, they were more like photographs. Except what made them even more unusual was the sight that each of the photographs was moving, as if each photograph was a television screen. It was only when the Neb Two crew looked closer that they saw something that truly surprised them. The pictures on the walls that moved in each frame were pictures of Neo on the left wall and pictures of Trinity on the right wall, every single one taken from different parts of their life.

"What's this?" Kim asked, looking from one clip of Neo and Trinity's life to the next.

"This is our study," Persephone answered Kim's question.

Kim brought her attention to Persephone because she had a good hunch that she was going to hear more of an explanation about the study. Looking at Persephone, Kim felt put off when she found that she was being glared at. It was the kind of glare that she would get from her mother when she did something wrong as a child.

"This is the experiment that you ruined," Persephone laid the blame to Kim.

"What?" Kim asked, feeling very confused by what was going on.

"Do you believe that you are Ron's soul mate?" Persephone asked, sounding very demanding of Kim, "Do you honestly believe that you are the reincarnation of Trinity?"

"I…" Kim stammered, trying to make sense out of what she was hearing.

"If Kimberly is not," Morpheus interjected as he placed a supportive hand on Kim's shoulder, "Then who is?"

Persephone grew a very smug smile on her face like someone who knew that they were winning but wasn't going to tell how they were doing it. She stepped away from Kim and headed over to the left wall where the moving pictures of Neo hung. She waved her hand in front of them like a magician about to make a coin disappear. The Neb Two crew looked to the pictures and watched them make the slow transition from that dark haired man named Neo to the blonde, freckled, and Dumbo-eared boy, Ron Stoppable. Every picture on that wall showed a small snippet from his life, the Bueno Nacho event, the Millionaire incident, and even that moodulator episode that always made Kim blush to think about.

Persephone then went to the other wall where there were the moving pictures of Trinity; she waved her hand at the pictures in one motion. The Neb Two crew were left clamoring in wonder of who Trinity would turn into, their hearts racing, hoping that it was true that Trinity would turn out to be Kim. Instead, their eyes widened, when Trinity's black hair became brown, her smooth pinkish white skin became tanned, and her eyes became a deeper blue. Every one of them looked from one picture to the next seeing that Trinity did not become Kim, she became…Bonnie Rockwaller.

"No…" Kim uttered as her hands went to cover her mouth and her legs wobbled as she stepped back while her eyes looked from one picture to the next, hoping and wishing that it was all not true, "It's not true…it can't be true…it's impossible!"

"Oh, but it can," Persephone corrected Kim in her laughter at the girl's pain, "And it is… and it would have happened had it not been for you."

Kim could feel an enormous déjà vu or at the very least the biggest case of coincidence that she had ever felt. She was sick to her stomach, almost feeling the white goop that passed for food on the outside starting to rise in her throat. Not because of the stomach bug, but because it all seemed so unreal that she couldn't accept it.

"Explain yourself now," Morpheus had demanded of Persephone.

"Simple," Persephone stated with a shrug on her shoulders, "Ron was meant to be with Bonnie…but then_ she_ came along and infatuated him to the point that he ignored what made sense. _We_…gave them both a chance to be together…to be happy, and have a chance at a future together, but Ron chose the one that would only lead to the destruction of everything we worked toward!"

After her rant, Persephone looked back at Kim, who was still trying her best to come to grips with the truth. She came closer to Kim, but this time she didn't have that angry and bitter look that she had minutes ago, instead she was looking at Kim almost with a type of sympathy.

"I can feel it though," Persephone spoke softly to Kim, "You love him. Tell me…would you die for him? I'm not speaking of fighting with a risk of losing your life. I speak of…giving up…sacrificing your life and your future for him…a man that you now know belongs to another?"

"I would," Kim stated without hesitation and with almost a growl, forcing her point to Persephone as she stared into her eyes.

"Is that a fact?" Persephone had asked in such a way that it nearly sounded as if she was purring, like some kind of seductress moving closer to her.

"Even if he doesn't belong with me…I belong with him," Kim defiantly stated, her voice cracking slightly as she tried to fight back the urge to cry, before she added, "And that's all there is to say about it."

After Kim made her last defiance against what she heard from Persephone, she felt a single tear roll down her cheek to the corner of her mouth. She looked through her blurry, tear-filled vision at Persephone who had come very close to Kim. She felt her reaching up to Kim's face to wipe away the tear. Kim didn't want to be touched by her, so she tried to pull back as Persephone had wiped away the tear. As Kim tried to back away, she felt a hand holding the back of her head preventing her retreat. Kim was about to try to get out of it, but then the most unexpected thing had happened. She looked forward to watch Persephone leaning in quickly for a kiss with her. All Kim could do was open her eyes in shock at what happened. She did open her mouth to let out a small gasp, but soon found that to be a very grave error when she felt Persephone's tongue wriggling past her lips and to her own. She could even feel Persephone slipping her hand around Kim's waist as if she had been waiting to do this ever since they met.

Persephone finally broke the kiss, letting Kim go, who was just shocked as could be by what had happened. She suddenly had a pretty good idea of what Ron felt like when she kissed him during that whole moodulator episode.

"Now this is interesting indeed," Persephone moaned as if the kiss with Kim had given her an orgasm. She began to rub her lips with her fingertips, even licking them with her tongue. "The seeds have been planted inside you Kim Stoppable, the seeds of the greatest love there can be…a mother's love."

"What?" Kim asked, rather shocked and still glaring at her.

"Congratulations," Persephone grinned at Kim, "I'm sure if you had survived, you would have been a magnificent mother. But do not take my word for it, Kimberly Anne Stoppable, go to _your_ Oracle."

"We're wasting our time here," Morpheus stated as he pulled the shocked and irate Kim towards the exit, "Let us find another source of information."

As the four of them were heading to the elevator, there was a great confusion. Even Ghost had to ask Morpheus:

"What'd we do now, sir?"

The second he asked that question, Kim's Kimmunicator beeped.

"Wade?" Kim asked when she turned the device on and brought it to eye level, "What's the sitch?"

"Mom says it's time she had a word with you on some things, Kim," Wade reported with a knowing smile, "Including a way to win the war and keep Ron breathing."

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Back in the real world…

Ron "Neo" Stoppable gasped as he opened his eyes to the gray, inner chambers of the Mad Dog, his chair coming back down to the loading position as he sat up. He looked around to see the rest of the crew gathering in the semi-circle of jack chairs.

"Okay people, listen up," Barkin called to everyone's attention, "We've got some work to do. Tater, you and Sparks ready the broadcast system for wide coded communications. Tres and Neo, you two prep the Mad Dog for launch. We need to get to Jericho as soon as humanly possible."

"No," Bonnie snapped at Captain Barkin's orders, "I'll help Sparks; let Brick help Stoppable prep the ship."

"Tres," Barkin snapped back, pulling rank, "You will do as you're told, as long as you serve aboard my ship."

"Screw you, old man!" Bonnie snarled at her commanding officer before she stomped out of the jack chamber.

"THIS IS INSUBORDINATION!" Barkin shouted back, getting the last word in edgewise.

"Let me handle this," Ron stepped in. He left the Jack Room and went down the hallway to Bonnie's quarters. As he stood outside the door, he thought to himself, "This is going to be settled here and now."

"Stoppable!" Bonnie screamed when Ron came into the room, "What if I was undressed!"

"Nothing I haven't already seen, _Rockwaller_," Ron stated smugly to Bonnie who was just sitting on the edge of the bed in her quarters, "You mind telling me why you hate me so much? For as long as I can remember, inside or out of the Matrix, you've had a problem with me and Kim. I just want to know why. Are you still pissed about what happened during your fight with Kim?"

"It has nothing to do with _that_, but it does have to do with Kim," Bonnie said, looking up at Ron. Her blue eyes were filled with tears that flowed down her cheeks, "_We_ should be together, not you and Possible!"

Ron looked at Bonnie with a slightly confused air about him, especially since he had noticed how Bonnie was using his last name instead of his first.

"Bonnie, we had _one_ date…we let it get out of hand and we had sex, that's hardly a reason, don't you think?" Ron asked, allowing his voice to rise slightly.

"You really don't remember, do you?" Bonnie asked, her tears continuing to flow down her cheek.

"Remember what?" Ron asked, more confused than ever.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Back in the Matrix…

Kim "Angel" Stoppable had arrived at the Oracle's apartment, she came alone, since she and the others now knew the truth about who Ron was destined to be with, the Neb Two crew decided to leave her alone. She didn't even knock at the door; she simply stormed her way through the living room into the kitchen like some kind of Juggernaut. In the kitchen, she found the Oracle sitting at the round table, casually puffing on her cigarette, while the smell of smoke mixed with the sweet aroma from the tray of fresh cookies on the table.

"Okay, what was Persephone talking about with Ron and Bonnie being soul mates?" Kim demanded from the Oracle, who seemed to take no notice or offense from Kim's rudeness, "And what about me being a mother? Or about me screwing something up? And how can we win without Ron going down like Neo?"

The Oracle didn't answer immediately, but took another puff of her cigarette.

"Talk, old woman!" Kim ordered.

The Oracle had come to the end of her cigarette; she shoved it into the ashtray, smothering it out. She then went to the tray of cookies, picked them up while she got out of her seat, and then brought them over to Kim.

"Cookie?" She asked in a similar way to Grandma Possible offering Kim some of her lemon squares.

Kim's frustration had reached the exploding point.

"Screw the goddamn cookies, woman!" She screamed as she took the plate and threw it across the kitchen, where it crashed against one of the cabinets, shattering into dozens of fragments of peanut butter cookies and glass, before Kim screamed once more at the Oracle, "Talk!"

"Boy," The Oracle commented, not looking a bit surprised but rather commenting as if she was saying 'that's strange', "Those hormones are really working, aren't they honey? I certainly do pity Ron."

Looking at the mess she made, Kim had immediately felt remorse.

"I'm so sorry, Oracle," Kim apologized, "I just don't know what's going on or what's wrong with me."

"Don't worry about it, honey," The Oracle smiled that grandmother smile, "Now to help you cool your afterburners."

The Oracle sat back down at the kitchen table, reaching for another cigarette and her lighter, but before she did, she motioned for Kim to sit down with her. Without giving any second thought to it, Kim sat down as the Oracle lit up.

"Okay, let's start with the basics," The Oracle started her explanation after taking a short drag from her cigarette, "The whole soul mate thing, that's just a theory on their parts. Like the wedding vows say: ''til death do us part.' That usually makes the whole soul mate thing null and void, so you can stop panicking about Ron being alone on that big ol' ship with Ms. Rockwaller. He _has_ feelings for her, that's the truth, but he is completely head over heels for you.

"But…" Kim started to ask, but began to tremble from the fear of the answer, "I'm not the reincarnation of Trinity, am I?"

"Nope," The Oracle had answered, then taking another drag off her cigarette, but then added, "and yep."

"Ok, vague much?"

The Oracle chuckled while she set her cigarette in her ash tray. She then got up from the table and headed toward the doorway that connected the kitchen to the rest of the apartment.

Still curious, but fearful of the answers, Kim followed the Oracle to the living room where there were all those pieces of furniture that looked as if they came out of a time warp, especially that television set, the big wooden console that was more wood than actual TV. Kim looked to find the Oracle sitting on the couch with the TV's control in her hand and a smile on her face.

"Let's watch some TV shall we?" The Oracle asked, pushing the power button for the TV.

At first, Kim was about to question, very irritably, where the point of all this was going, but then she heard a very familiar voice coming from the television speakers, while the screen was still warming up.

"Mommy," A little girl's voice had pleaded, "I wanna stay home with you, daddy, and my baby sister."

Kim instantly remembered all of it, but the screen of the television had confirmed what she remembered. She saw a little girl with her red hair in pigtails and a little blue dress clinging to her pregnant mother's leg with a look on her face that would come to be called her "Puppy Dog Pout".

"Remember her, Kim?" The Oracle asked.

Kim nodded as she sat down next to the Oracle, never taking her eyes off the television screen.

"Now, let's fast forward it a little to what was supposed to be a year ago," The Oracle had presented as her thumb pressed a button that made the television screen fast forward over hundreds, if not thousands, of images before stopping upon a very bizarre sight.

On the screen, Kim saw another girl. There was something very familiar about her, but at the same time she was so different…so alien to the eyes of Kim Stoppable. The girl had reddish hair that was messy, unkempt, and looked as if she had never heard of such a thing as hair care products. The girls face was the same way, unclean and covered with zits, white with red perimeters and small black spots that were deep in her skin. She had a pair of coke-bottle-lens-glasses that magnified her green eyes many times over. The girl's clothes were truly baggy, hiding the figure underneath, which tied into how the girl held a small stack of books to her chest as if they would save her life. This girl that Kim looked at on the screen hid herself behind her books, baggy clothes, and ratty, unkempt hair as she moved through the hall of a high school, avoiding all contact with anyone. As Kim looked, the dots had connected…

"Is that…" Kim paused, "is that supposed to be me?"

"Bingo, Kimmie," The Oracle smiled, "That _is_ who you're _supposed_ to be, but it isn't, now is it?"

Kim shook her head, her mouth gaping open as she looked at the reality that was on the television screen.

"Something happened," The Oracle explained, "When you were just a little girl, probably around five years old, something that even I didn't see coming. You remember when your natural fighting instinct kicked in, or your outgoing drive to help people?"

Kim couldn't answer since her mind, like before with Persephone, was trying to wrap around this supposed reality. After all, she had found out her parents had died, that she wasn't destined to be with her husband, and, to top it all off, she wasn't even who she was supposed to be. How could anyone deal with any one of those things, let alone all of them, in one day?

"Let me give you a reminder," The Oracle stated as she changed the channel, and the Oracle and Kim watched that red haired, pig-tailed little girl chasing a red ball across the pre-school playground. That was until a young boy in a black t-shirt and jeans took the ball away from her.

"Hey!" The red-haired girl called while the hairy-handed boy tossed the ball to his friends, who kept it away from her, "Give it back! It was my turn!"

"Oh, it was your turn? We had no idea, here," The little boy held out the ball to the little girl.

The red haired girl reached for the ball, "Thanks," She smiled.

"Psyche!" The young punk laughed as he pulled the ball away from her grasp.

The bullies circled around the red haired girl, until a new voice came in.

"Leave her alone!" The voice demanded.

All of them looked to find a young, blonde haired boy with freckles, large ears, and a red shirt with a teddy bear's face on it.

"It's her turn!" The blonde haired boy defended the red haired girl, "Taking turns is the basic foundation of pre-school. The Jungle Law of Day Care is behind us. We have structure! We have rules!"

"Get him," the young, pale-skinned boy said. It was apparent that he was the ring leader of the schoolyard bullies.

The three of them dropped the ball and pushed the red haired girl, seeing that the blonde boy took greater priority in establishing their dominance. While the bullies set their sights on their new target, the little red haired girl got back to her feet and walked away with a very defeated look on her face. As she did, she couldn't help but look back to the blonde hair boy who was being cornered at the jungle gym by the bullies who were laughing with their evil intent. It really is true; there is nothing more pure and cruel as a child. The bullies had cut off all routes of escape, and the red haired girl felt something within her: a fire that began to burn like molten lava that was ready to explode to the surface. She turned back to the jungle gym where the blonde haired boy was trying to scare them:

"I'm warning you," The blonde haired boy tried to use his own pre-school scare tactics, "I have an imaginary friend…he is _huge_! Rufus!"

"Hey, bullies!" The red haired girl called the bullies before she started using martial arts moves and just basically beating the snot out of the schoolyard punks with moves that the little blonde haired boy had never seen before. Until the bullies ran away, never to be heard from again, leaving behind the blonde haired boy and red haired girl to start a very beautiful friendship.

Kim smiled as she watched her younger self picking up that red ball and walk over to the little blonde haired and freckle faced boy that would become her rock. It was funny in looking back on it, it was the kind of moment where one would ask themselves, 'who knew?' But Kim had a different question,

"Ron," she uttered, "he did something to me?"

"Bingo. I'd offer you a cookie for a prize, but it seems that they've gone to pieces." The Oracle smiled at Kim, "Ron liked you and didn't want to see you hurt so he made you different. Using his innate, Anomaly abilities without his knowledge, he reformed your code to be like his subconscious image of how a strong, independent woman should be."

"Trinity?" Kim asked.

"Right again," The Oracle grinned once again. She leaned back against the couch, "So in a sense, he made you a copy of Trinity, but not a complete copy. He could bring out the parts of your code that were like hers and mold your personality and skills to the point that you would be able to handle yourself as Trinity did."

The Oracle reached out to the table in front of the couch where there was a bowl of candy, and took a single piece for herself.

"This also makes you a bit of a wild card," She continued as she unwrapped the candy, "You're not supposed to be here. You weren't supposed to befriend him. Ron and Bonnie were to get together, become the ultimate crime fighting duo, and then exit the Matrix to fight the machines, where upon Bonnie would be killed outside the Matrix. She would be followed closely by Ron who would die defending mankind against Smith." The Oracle swallowed the candy and crumpled up the tin foil as she said, "But you changed all that."

"I did?" Kim had asked.

"The Oracle smiled broadly at Kim, "Bonnie grew to dislike you, and pushed down her inner feelings for Ron, replacing them with disgust. You took her place as Ron's best friend and partner, and created an even closer friendship then would have been possible between the reincarnation of Neo and the true reincarnation of Trinity. Your dad always told you _anything is possible for a Possible_, well you hit the nail on the head there, kiddo. You're outside the loop. Right now, Ron is going to die and the war will continue, and drag on and on. But again, you can change all that like what you've changed so far. It's all in your hands."

"How can I save him?" Kim asked, her voice dripping with concern and desperation like syrup on pancakes.

"That I can't tell you, and I'm sorry for that." The Oracle once again smiled at Kim, but she did it in such a way that seemed like she was in pain, "I can tell you that when the time comes you'll know what to do. Ron, very shortly, is going to be in a fight that he will need your help to win, he'll need you desperately. He'll need all three of you."

"Three?" Kim asked, very surprised and overtly curious of whom the other two were.

"Congratulations, Kimmie," The Oracle gave Kim a toothy grin, "You've got two beautiful, twin baby girls on the way in just a little over eight months."

Kim kept looking at the Oracle and her toothy grin, hoping that there would be some sign that she was actually joking about the whole thing and that she wasn't pregnant. She then allowed her hands to settle over her bare midriff, she glanced down at herself, then to the Oracle who still smiled, down to her belly, back to the Oracle, and back down to herself. It had suddenly made so much sense, the morning sickness, her wild mood swings.

She vaguely remembered her mother going through the same thing when she was pregnant with the Tweebs. Then she thought that Ron and she had been _together_ so many times that it was bound to happen.

Kim "Angel" Stoppable had done a great many things in her life; she had faced the worst of bad guys, faced her own worst fears, and even fell in love with her best friend. But there was always a first time for everything, even for the girl who could do anything as she fainted back onto the arm of the Oracle's couch.

To be continued…


	19. Shutdown Chapter 4

**The ****Kimmatrix****: Matrix Shutdown**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and ****Turles**

**Chapter 4: ****Neodammerung**** Part 1 – Bonnie ****Definitely**

"_Asato__ ma __Sad__gamaya_

_Tamaso__ ma __jyotir__gamaya_

_Mrtyor __mamrtam__gamaya__."_

"From delusion lead me to truth

From darkness lead me to light

From death lead me to immortality"

Don Davis – "Neodammerung"

_The Matrix Revolutions Soundtrack_

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

"Stoppable!" Bonnie screamed when Ron came into the room and even added, "What if I was undressed?"

"Nothing I haven't already seen, _Rockwaller_" Ron stated smugly to Bonnie who was just sitting on the edge of the bed in her quarters, "Do you mind telling me why you hate me so much? For as long as I can remember, inside and out of the Matrix, you've had a problem with me and Kim. I just want to know why. Are you still pissed about what happened during your fight with Kim?"

"It has nothing to do with _that_, but it does have to do with Kim," Bonnie had explained, looking up at Ron with her blue eyes filled with tears that flowed down her cheeks, "_We_ should be together, not you and Possible!"

Ron looked at Bonnie with a slightly confused air about him, especially since he had noticed right away that she was using his last name instead of his first.

"Bonnie, we had one date…let it get out of hand, and we had sex, that's hardly reason for us to be together, don't you think?" Ron asked, allowing his voice to rise slightly.

"You really don't remember, do you?" Bonnie asked, her tears continuing to flow down her cheek.

"Remember what?" Ron asked as he sat on the edge of the bed next to Bonnie, while she, sitting at the corner, turned her back to him. Annoyed and curious, Ron demanded, "Bonnie, what am I supposed to remember? Tell me!"

"Bon…" Ron stated nervously as he rubbed the back of his head, "we were five…I…"

"Don't give me that 'you don't remember' line," Bonnie snapped angrily at Ron, "You said yourself; you remember the first time that you saw Kim, but do you remember just before that? Do you remember just walking off without saying a word? And not speaking to me again for _six months._ _Six goddamn months!_"

"Bonnie…" Ron uttered.

"You just left me for her," Bonnie continued to sob, "And you never looked back. I _hated_ you for that! I _hated you_ for leaving me and I _hated her_ for taking you away from me. And then...and then we got out, and…the Oracle said we'd be together again. It was my fresh start with you…and…and I had you, but I screwed it up…"

Looking directly at Ron, Bonnie came closer to him. She even reached out to his freckle covered cheek with her tears continuing to pour over her own cheeks. She smiled at Ron in such a way that seemed so painful but happy at the same time.

"I lied to Kim, Ron," Bonnie stated as if she were whispering a secret never to be told again, "I lied to her. I lied to spite her…I didn't sleep with you to get her…I swear on everything that I am that is the truth."

Ron looked at the sobbing Bonnie, feeling very puzzled as his mind tried so hard to pour through the memories he had. First, during the time when Bonnie warmed up to him and how betrayed he felt when Bonnie supposedly used him to get back at Kim. Then his mind tried to think back to before he met Kim, not into the memories of the Ones before him, but from his own life. The day he met Kim was such a wonderful day because he was saved. Amongst his young memories, he could only remember a vague image of young, chestnut haired girl.

With that blurry image in his mind, it all made sense. His eyes had widened at Bonnie when the realization had dawned upon him, but he couldn't say a word. Before he could tell her anything of what he remembered, Bonnie had leaned forward and pressed her lips against his while she wrapped her arms around him. Her hand on his back while the other held the back of his head so that Ron couldn't escape.

Ron then reached up with his hands to Bonnie's chest and pushed her back. She landed on the bed while Ron got to his feet, rubbing his lips after Bonnie had given such a kiss of passion.

"Bonnie," Ron stated fearfully, "I'm married to Kim, remember?"

"Is she here?" Bonnie asked seriously, getting to her feet, outstretching her arms hoping to have Ron one last time.

To Ron, the physical temptation was not as great as the emotional. Everything inside him screamed that it was the right thing to do. Except the price for what was being suggested was too great to Ron, especially since as far as that matter goes, Kim was better in matters of the bedroom than Bonnie.

Just then, the proximity alarm had sounded throughout all of the _Mad Dog_. Setting aside the sexual temptation, Bonnie and Ron dashed back up to the bridge.

"What's going on?" Ron asked loudly over the proximity alarm to Barkin, Sparks, and Brick.

"It's those damned souped up Sentinels!" Barkin debriefed both Ron and Bonnie, "Can you take them out, Neo?"

Ron closed his eyes and looked out of his proverbial 'third eye' to see the sentinels as beings of light contrasted against the black abyss. He turned his head in all directions and found that there were so many coming right at them.

"I could if they were at one side," Ron reported to the _Mad Dog_ crew while he continued to keep his eyes closed to see the Sentinels coming closer, "But we're surrounded…I can stop most, but a few will get through."

" Well, that's just prime!" Barkin sighed with a shout, before he turned to the Mad Dog's pilot controls, "Do what you can, Neo! The rest of you, battle stations!"

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

_Vidyam__cavidyam__ ca __yas_

_Tad __vedabhayam__saha_

_Avidyaya__mityam__tirtun_

_Vidyamaitam_

"He who knows both knowledge and action

With action overcomes death

And with knowledge reaches immortality"

- Don Davis – "Neodammerung"

_The Matrix Revolutions Soundtrack_

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

"I have a bad feeling about this, sir," Link expressed concern to his captain over the phone, as he looked to the jack chamber to see all of the Neb Two Crew jacked into the Matrix.

Inside the Matrix, the Neb Two crew was waiting inside Central Park at the same place, the statue of Alice speaking silently to the hookah smoking caterpillar. Almost as if that place was a cosmic "save game point" and every time the game was loaded, they came to that spot.

"I know, Link," Morpheus replied into the cell phone as he and his crew stood around the benches, "But the Oracle said that the means for Ron's victory would be here at exactly seventeen-hundred hours, and right now its sixteen-fifty-five."

"Yeah, but this whole thing still feels like a trap to me," Link sighed, but remembered how Morpheus had asked him to trust him, and in the past six months, Link had to relearn this, "I'll let you know if I see anything."

Morpheus closed up the cell phone and slipped it back into his coat pocket as he took a short look around at the park around him. Niobe was standing near that statue of Alice and the Caterpillar and looking back and forth between the curious Alice moving around the bronze mushrooms in her frozen state. The Caterpillar was taking a puff from his hookah and looked as though he was about to ask his question of "who are you". It was that kind of question that plagued all human beings from womb to tomb.

Ghost was sitting at the park bench and next to him was a bronze statue of a business man with a briefcase at his the side of his leg and a cell phone at his ear listening quietly to stock quotes looking as though he was going to close his phone and head back to the office to make more money, but still sitting there with the phone to his ear.

Last of all, there was Kim sitting at an empty park bench, looking at the nearby lake that shined with the setting sun, spreading out the colors of the coming evening sky. The surface of the lake looked like handfuls of diamonds tossed against a rainbow of the setting sun.

Morpheus stepped over to Kim; he felt that Kim would be the most worried because of the dealing with Ron. Seeing that Kim was like his adopted daughter, he felt that he had some parental responsibility for her. It was even more so after hearing the news that Napster and Kazza Possible were killed in the Fall of Neo Zion. He went over to Kim Stoppable's side and sat down right next to her. He saw how nervously frightened her face looked as well as the increased amount of fidgeting she was doing.

"I'm sure things will go as they are meant to, Kimberly," Morpheus had told Kim, hoping that his words of faith would be encouraging to her.

"I don't," Kim gulped, "if it goes the way it was meant to, I'll lose Ron again."

Apparently, his words of belief didn't exactly work the way that he had hoped. He watched as Kim's hands had set themselves upon her flat and bare midriff.

"I still can't believe it," she said moving her hands around her belly, "I'm going to be a _mother_. We're going to be _parents_…but…what if Ron gets upset, what if he…"

"That's enough, Kimberly," Morpheus had silenced Kim's paranoia, "what comes will come. Remember that."

Kim took in the information.

While over at the businessman's park bench, Ghost had pulled back his sleeve to see what time it was. Seeing the position of the hands on the face, he got up from the bench and called to his crewmates.

"It's time!" He called out to them.

The moment he did the Neb Two crew had gathered in the central area where the paths of the park came together, the four of them placing themselves into a small ring, back to back to look out for anything. Anything that could be what they came for.

"So, where's this 'means of victory'?" Niobe asked glancing around the ghost-town of a park.

"I do not know, Niobe," Morpheus had stated as he brought out a pair of Uzis, getting ready for anything, "The Oracle had said that the way for Ron and mankind to survive the war shall be here at seventeen-hundred hours, and it is only one minute until then. Everyone, be ready."  
The time had come to sixteen-fifty-nine hours, the light was growing dimmer and the Neb Two crew were growing anxious in their anticipation of what it was that the Oracle had told them was about to come.

In the coming chill of dusk, the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar Two heard a voice that chilled them down to their bones and very souls.

"Morpheus, Miss Niobe, Ghost, and KP," the voice called out, but it sounded as if it was coming around from all directions like music from a surround sound system. By instinct, they had looked around in each direction that they could trying to find the source of the sinister voice in the coming dusk.

"How nice to see you all here," The sinister voice had added.

The four of them felt petrified by their fear of what they heard. If they could see who or what it was that was behind the surrounding voice, then at least it would have given them something to shoot at, but with it coming from all directions, they felt trapped. Perhaps Link was right when he had expressed his concern to Morpheus that it was a trap.

"Show yourself!" Kim demanded of the surrounding voice.

In the fading light of the sunset, the demand was answered when from all around, behind the trees, the hidden paths, and even down the asphalt roads of the park, they came. It was Agent Smith copied over, and over, and over again, the program had truly become a virus in his infection of those still connected to the Matrix.

The army of Smiths had encircled the Neb Two crew, and one of the many copies had stepped closer to them: the Ambassador of Smiths, as it were.

"Nice night, huh?" He had asked with his usual dry and deadpan humor seeing how the Neb Two crew wasn't going to answer, he then asked, "Would you like to join the club?"

"When Satan ice-skates to work," Ghost defiantly answered, followed by his drawing of his guns and firing them at the Smiths, one rapid shot after the other, but he should have known better as all the Agent Smiths that he shot at simply dodged the shots. It was only a matter of moments when Ghost had completely run out of ammunition, he looked at his guns and dropped them to the ground.

"Very well, then," The Lead Smith responded to Ghost's defiance, he turned to his proverbial brothers and instructed, "Shoot them. Take those that survive."

It wasn't all the Smiths, but only the first line that was the closest to the Neb Two crew who pulled out their guns. It was the standard sidearm that Agent Smith used in the days when he was a program of the system, the Eagle .45. The first line of Smith's had done this in a singular synchronized motion and cocked their guns such as though that it sounded like a single cocking action. With that they took aim at the Neb Two crew, and it seemed like the absolute end for them.

Yet, before the guns were fired, Ghost had looked at his watch and found that it was already seventeen-hundred hours, and still the coming miracle wasn't there.

The guns were fired; some members of the Neb Two crew had closed their eyes hoping that the miracle would happen, but at the same time expecting to die. Though, Morpheus only held onto his guns and kept his eyes open from behind his frameless sunglasses, even in the face of such hopelessness he still believed what the Oracle had told. Kim threw her arms over her eyes, but only a second after the shots were fired, there was an odd feeling in the air of the Matrix.

"What?" Smith grunted.

"Holy shit!" Ghost quietly uttered.

Kim's curiosity had peaked. Since she wasn't dead; she wanted to know what happened. She brought her arms down from her face and looked around, but what she saw had confused her. She saw a small veil of bullets, yet they were hanging in mid-air as if time within the Matrix had been stopped. She had seen this Matrix manipulation before, but she looked around and couldn't see Ron anywhere. She looked back at the bullets that were still floating in mid-air, and reached out, plucked one of the bullets as if it were a leaf from a tree. She looked at its smooth and simple design still wondering about what was going on.

"How did this happen?" She had asked as she dropped the bullet to the ground.

"It is you, Kimberly," Morpheus had shared his revelation with Kim, his crew, and the Army of Smith's, "You have Ron's code inside you…_inside your children…_you can now fight as he does!"

Kim had looked around at the bullets still stuck in mid-air like flies on fly paper. Her eyesight had changed. The rendering of the surfaces that she could see were being peeled away like the skin of an orange. The asphalt, the trees, the buildings, the sky, and even skin, hair, and clothes were peeled away to reveal the code of the Matrix beneath it. She understood it all, she understood how it was that Ron could fight, and with this new knowledge Kim had felt a great sense of empowerment. Kim "Angel" Stoppable had felt like she had regained something, her pride as the _girl who could do anything._ She looked back at the bullets and they dropped like loose marbles out of a bag.

Agent Smith curled back his lips into a savage and hateful snarl, "Take them." He commanded the rest of the Agent Smith Army.

"Don't worry about us, Kimberly," Morpheus had instructed to Kim as he cocked his guns, "Defeat Smith!"

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Deep within the tunnels beneath the Earth's surface, the Mad Dog was running. It was swerving and trying to squeeze through all the tunnels while behind them the Omega Sentinels were in hot pursuit of them like bloodhounds on the trail of a fox. Even with the Mad Dog running, it was still putting up a fight with a good number of the crew manning the gun turrets. Each gun whined and fired at the sentinels that were gaining on them.

There were only Five Omega Class Sentinels left, but to take down just one required so much ammunition. The only good part was that they were able to keep them from attaching to the hull. Once a Sentinel does, they first go for the gun turrets, eliminate defense, and then they go for the hover pads.

Inside at one of the gun turrets, Brick "Tater Salad" Flagg was at his most gung-ho when he was shooting down the sentinels. He concentrated his fire on the closest one that was starting to fail, its eyes blown off from the Vulcan Cannon fire and Brick was more than happy to deliver the final blow.

"Hail to the king, baby!" Brick cheered as the Sentinel went down into the debris of the tunnel, but he brought himself back to concentrate on his post, "Oh shit!"

He brought the guns around and yanked back the triggers on a sentinel that was starting to get a little too close to the ship. Thankfully, the other turrets had lent their immediate support to take it down.

Meanwhile, in the center of the ship, Ron "Neo" Stoppable was standing in the center of the Jack Chamber trying to use as much of his power as he could. In his mind's vision, he could see that there were only three left, but his powers had drained so much from him, more than any physical activity that he had ever engaged in, even sex with Kim, which was nothing scoff at once she got going. He panted and rubbed the sweat from his brow and tried once again to take out the last of them, because he knew that ammunition was very short. Still, with his eyes shut and as much as he could, he took down one, leaving two more.

"I can't hold them back much longer…" Ron groaned as he fought to stay on his feet. He then decided to give one last push, like a marathon runner deciding to give the last of their strength before crossing the finish line. Yet, with Ron's final push, he could only manage to take down one sentinel, leaving only one left. Seeing it come closer, and hearing the gun turrets running out of ammunition he had collapsed onto his knees, before uttering as the sentinel spread its legs, "I'm sorry…"

"Incoming!" Brick had called to the rest of the Mad Dog crew.

As Ron lay on his hands and knees, sweat covering every part of him and soaking into his clothes, his ears could hear a screech of metal being rubbed or possibly being pulled away from metal. He slowly turned his head to look up to the ceiling of the Jack Room and as time around him started to slow down, the déjà vu was back. He remembered his old life as Neo when he was first awakened to this power, how he barely got out of the Matrix before an EMP was triggered to kill the sentinels that were attacking the Neb One. It was also when Neo had fallen in love with Trinity.

Ron looked up to watch the monstrosity of metal and electronics spread out its tentacles to move about the interior of the Mad Dog. It's enormous oddly shaped head and face covered with camera lenses looked down at the weakened Ron, and saw the opportunity. It moved down into the Jack Room like a spider moving in its own web, each tentacle reaching out to whatever it could find for support before coming face to face with Ron "Neo" Stoppable.

There was no strength left over in Ron's body to stop it, or even get out of the way as the Omega Sentinel brought up its mechanical tendrils (as if one wouldn't have been enough) and shot them down at the defenseless man.

"RON!" Bonnie had screamed as she threw her body into the line of fire and shoved Ron out of the way.

Ron had tumbled onto his side; he brought his head up and looked to his left where he saw Bonnie lying on the metallic floor of the Jack Chamber with blood coming from her lips. He looked down to see her stomach impaled on the Omega Sentinel's tendrils. All of a sudden, the anger and hatred that he had build up exploded sending Ron right back to his feet and staring at the Omega Sentinel who hadn't even begun to retract its metallic tentacles. It looked at Ron, seeing its mistake and began to correct it.

"Die!" Ron screamed as he held up his hand to the Sentinel, "Die you son of a bitch! DIE!"

The Sentinel head had tilted back as the lights of its eyes flickered, while the circuitry inside was literally being melted. The stench of burning electronics had filled the cabin of the Mad Dog as the last Omega Sentinel that was in pursuit of them fell, and all functioning had ceased.

After the Sentinel was down, Ron had gone to Bonnie, who still had those metallic tentacles lodged in her lower abdomen. Seeing Bonnie like that, Ron had come to the most earth-shattering revelation that he ever had. It came from a memory that was sparked when he saw her lying there. He remembered the last time that Neo had seen Trinity alive; Neo had lost his eyes, and they were on their way to the machine city. Upon their arrival, they had crashed their ship, the Logos, which once belonged to Niobe. In that crash, Trinity was impaled, and, oddly enough, in the very same place as Bonnie, Ron looked at Bonnie's face and his mind overlapped the faces of Bonnie and Trinity. His jaw had dropped and the tears started to flow like opened flood gates, Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller _was_ Trinity. They were one and the same.

"Bonnie?" Ron asked as he wept, bringing himself up alongside Bonnie. He had figured out the truth all too late, this was what Ron should have remembered.

"Ron?" Bonnie had asked in short and sharp gasps while she looked up at Ron, "Ron…don't…don't leave me again…_please don't…_"

"Don't talk, Trin," Ron whispered as he took her hand in his own while he stroked her face with the other, "Save your strength."

"You remembered, Neo," Bonnie smiled at Ron while she stated hoarsely, "I'm so happy…now…that you remember, Neo, but…I'm…I'm sorry…if…if…I hadn't…been an idiot…we would have…been…it…you could have been happy…with me…" Bonnie had paused for a moment to cough up more blood, which slid down her face and neck before she continued, "Don't…don't…hate me…Neo…"

Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller had taken her final breath before her eyes had lost focus and then closed. Her heart rate had slowed and her grip on Ron's hand had loosened.

"Trin?" Ron asked of Bonnie, shaking her, hoping that she may come back to life, but she didn't and his tears began to flow even more, "Trinity? Trinity, don't…_Trinity! Trinity…_"

Ron continued to weep for her as he held her face close to his. The tears from his face, running down hers and mixing into the blood on her chin and neck. His weeping also added to the loud sobbing of the other crew members, Brick…Sparks…and even Captain Barkin.

He soon realized that, even with all his powers, Ron "Neo" Stoppable was still powerless to save Kim's mom and dad, and… Trinity. That was when Ron had led out a heart-wrenching and tearful cry that bordered upon a howl from a feral animal and, even though no one could see it, Navigation was showing that all Sentinels within a one hundred mile radius had just ceased functioning, while Ron continued to weep beside Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller… no… _Trinity._

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

_Yasim__dyauh__pvthivi__cantariksam__otam__manah__saha__pranais__ ca __sarvaih__ tam __evaikam__janatha__atmanam__anya__vacah__vimuncatha__amratasya__esah__setah_

In him are woven the sky and the earth and all the regions of the air, and in him rest the mind and all the powers of life. Know him as the One and leave aside all other words. He is the bride of immortality.

- Don Davis "Neodammerung"

_Matrix Revolutions Soundtrack_

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

The fight had continued inside the Matrix…

Kim "Angel" Stoppable was in the center of the fight from the Agent Smith Army, her every limb was stretching out to knock out whichever Agent was the closet. It was truly an incredible experience to Kim, even more than her first day of training. She tried to make sense of it all, while her limbs were like those of an octopus, stretching, grabbing, hitting, and slamming. All the while, she could sense that the others weren't doing so well. She shifted her mind from the tasks of fighting and checked on the others.

Her eyes looked to see Morpheus, Niobe, and Ghost huddled in a circle, their backs against one another as they tried to fight off the Smiths with both guns and fists. Until, the inevitable had happened, they had run completely out of bullets, and against an army of Smith's there seemed to be no hope left for them.

Already she was thinking about what Ron would do in a similar situation, Kim had come to the conclusion that he would fly them out of there and take them to a safe place. Unfortunately for Kim, she had thought of this plan too little, too late, for as her body continued to fight, her eyes had caught a terrible glimpse. One of the Agent Smith's had brought its fingers and sank them into Ghost's chest. His body was slowly being covered by that shining black liquid.

"Ghost!" Niobe had gasped as she reached for her crewmate hoping to save him, but it became only fool-hearted as she reached for Ghost, who had already become a Smith copy, he plunged his fingers into her chest.

"Niobe!" Morpheus cried out, his guard being let down, which provided the ample opportunity for the Smith's to reach in and skink their fingers into his chest.

"Morpheus!" Kim had screamed as she fought her hardest against the Smiths, fueled by the fire and rage that she had from seeing her friends and crewmates being taken by that demon of a program.

Her hand had reached out hoping in the same way as Morpheus and Niobe did before her. She was hoped that she could save them, but even with her newfound powers she could do nothing. It was then and there for a split second that she understood why Ron couldn't save her parents. All that power in a world built on rules and yet not everything was possible, even for a Possible.

As her hand reached out in the futile hope of saving her crewmates, Kim's arm was grabbed by one of the many Smith copies. She looked to the Smith that had her arm, but she saw a smile on his face that was chilling, so much because it was so much like Ron's smile.

"Not bad, KP," Smith smiled, still calling her by that pet name that only Ron could call her, "but I've seen better."

Kim had tried to move to bring herself to make her stand against the Smiths, but it was all for nothing as she found out that none of her limbs could move. That's when she looked to find that there was one Smith on each limb, one around her arms, her waist, and her legs. She could feel the history starting to repeat like that time that Ron had saved her and found a way to copy himself. She struggled harder and harder to break free, but no matter how much she had tried, it was still no use. Once again, like it was six months ago, it seemed like the end for Kim, and Ron wouldn't be there to save her. That was when another memory had popped into Kim's mind as she struggled to get out and get away. It was from that dream, the dream of that woman who had told her:

"There will come a time when you will have to let go," she told her, "Let go of yourself…let go of control…and let go of _your one_…and there will be nothing you can do…but have faith."

As soon as the phrase had come into Kim's mind, it began to wash over her body, like warm water relaxing every muscle. She relaxed herself, no longer taking the struggle and allowing for the inevitable to come. She looked to Smith, waiting, until it finally happened when the sharp sting of Smith's fingers sank into her chest. Her face had grown a smile as the black liquid began to consume her as if she was being drowned in Smith's code. She could feel her own consciousness being taken over, her control being lost, but she didn't struggle at all. She didn't struggle in the slightest as the icy liquid had covered her. It had come up to her neck as she whispered one last statement.

"Ron…" she whispered, while the liquid began to cover her head and face, "I believe in you."

She didn't fight…because she had faith.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Back onboard the Mad Dog, Ron "Neo" Stoppable still clung to the deceased body of Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller, Trinity Reincarnated. His tears soaking into her clothes while the crew had gathered around him like curious observers at the scene of a horrible car crash. As they looked at the pitiful sight, more had gathered to see, they were the refugees of Zion who had wanted to know why the One was crying so much. In the silence of the crowd, while Ron sobbed, the only person to think of anything to say was Steve "Kid" Barkin. He stepped closer to Ron, placing his hand on the boy's shoulder.

"She knew what she was doing, Neo," He told him hoping that he would find consolation in that.

"Doesn't make it easier," Ron continued to weep, still thinking if he had been quicker or stronger, he could have saved her, like he could have saved Kim's parents.

From the bridge came the voice of Sparks, "Captain!" He shouted, "We're getting a distress signal!"

Captain Barking turned to look at the bridge to ask, "From where?"

"The Neb Two, sir," Sparks had answered before adding, "Three miles down, we can get there in no time."  
"Let's move then," Barkin had ordered.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

_Indriyebhyah__param__mano_

_Manash__sattvam__uttamam_

_Sttvad__adhi__mahan__atma_

_Mahato__vyaktam__uttaman_

Beyond the senses is the mind

And beyond the mind is reason, its essence.

Beyond reason is the spirit of man,

And beyond this is the spirit of the universe, the evolver of all.

- Don Davis "Neodammerung"

The Matrix Revolutions Soundtrack

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

The Mad Dog had found the Neb Two landed upon the debris cluttered ground of the old service and waste system. Upon their landing, they had to know what it was that the distress call was about, but since they didn't want to take chances, they had taken the EMP guns as their gangplank opened and they kept their guard up as they waited for the Neb Two to open up.

It didn't take very long as the gangplank of the Neb Two slowly came down to the ground exposing the Jack Chamber of the Main Deck. The Mad Dog crew stepped inside, greeted by the eyes of the Zion refugees who looked to Ron wondering if their salvation would come soon. They passed by the refugees to Link who sat at his station.

"Link," Barkin called to him.

Link turned around to breathe a good sigh of relief, "Thank God you're here," He said as he wrapped the good luck chain that his wife, Zee, gave to him, around his wrist and kissed it like a Catholic rosary.

"We got your distress signal," Barking reported, "So what's the situation?"

"He has them," Link gulped as he turned to point at the screens with the Matrix feed on them, "He has them all…and not just our people Ron…he's got _everybody_…The Oracle…Persephone…your parents…Kim…the whole goddamn Matrix is his now."

"Oh God…" Barkin gasped as he looked at the screens of the Matrix code, seeing how unusually messed up it was. Sometimes the code looked fine but then it changed to look as if it was being jumbled around the screen, like dice being shaken in a cup.

Ron said nothing as he looked at the code, once again those memories of Neo's life had come back to him. He could feel history repeating, as if the Oracle had given him her vision and he saw the outcome, or at least in the way that Neo had fought it. He stepped over to the Jack Chamber and into the semi-circle of jack chairs, knowing that this time it would be different. He would make sure of that.

In the jack chamber, he saw the sleeping bodies of Niobe, Ghost, Kim, and Morpheus. Around Morpheus' chair were his children, Trinity and Neo, who were holding onto their dad's hand, wishing against all wishes that their mom and dad would come back. Seeing those kids, Ron was instantly reminded of Kim, of how devastated she was when her parents were lost. He came to them and placed his hands upon their shoulders, their little faces looking up at him, tears waiting to roll down their little faces.

"Don't worry," Ron said to them, sounding almost like a father, "They'll be okay."

"How do you know, Ron?" The young Trinity asked.

"Because I have faith that they will," Ron had answered, he then departed their company and went to Kim's side. He stroked her cheek and her red hair, wanting to see her green eyes again. Then the thought of Smith having her made him come to his next decision, "Smith has to be stopped," He told the Mad Dog crew, "No matter the cost."

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

_Yada pancavatisthante_

_Jnanani manasa saha_

_Buddhis ca na vicestate_

_Tam __ahah__paramam__gatim_

When the five senses and

The mind are still,

And reason itself rests in silence

Then begins the path supreme.

- Don Davis "Neodammerung"

The Matrix Revolutions Soundtrack

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

This is how it ends.

Ron "Neo" Stoppable walked down the street of New York City, towards what was called Times Square. It was raining inside the Matrix, and there were frequent sparks of lightning that had given off such a green tone and tint to everything that Ron could see. The rain had soaked into his long duster while the water splashed, parted, and swished from under his shoes. He looked all around and saw the faces of Agent Smith, over, and over, again and again. Every single one of them glaring at him from behind their sunglasses, some of them baring their teeth angrily at him and others looked mildly pissed off at him. They were _everywhere_ as Link had told him; they were on the sidewalks, in the buildings and stores above the streets. Still, Ron paid no heed as he continued to walk down the middle of the street to the single Smith that was waiting there for him.

"Mister Stoppable…" The Lead Smith called out to him as if he wanted him to be there, "Welcome back…we missed you…"

The sarcasm was subtle from Ron's point of view, but he said nothing in response to it, the déjà vu was starting to become verbatim with Ron's memories.

"Do you like what I've done with the place?" Smith asked, looking around at the city, at the rain and the copies of himself, "Sure, it was a bit of a hassle, but really it was…_no big_."

Ron knew how he was supposed to end the discussion, because he knew the past and only that one part to repeat. Since, he knew how it ended last time; he was going to change it for good. That more than anything compelled him to say what needed to be said, right after his jaw muscles clenched and his teeth grinded together.

It was going to come true…one way…or another…

"It ends tonight…" He said as he clenched his fists, waiting to make his first move.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

_bhidgate__hrdayagranthis_

_Chidyante__sarvasamsayah_

_Ksigonte__casya__karami_

_Tasmin__drste__paravarne_

And when he is in his eminence and transcendence

Then the ties that have bound the heart are loosened

The doubts of the mind vanish,

And the laws of Karma work no more.

- Don Davis "Neodammerung"

The Matrix Revolutions Soundtrack

To be continued…


	20. Shutdown Chapter 5

**The Kimmatrix: Matrix Shutdown**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and Turles**

**Chapter 5: Neodammerung Part 2 – The Shutdown**

"_The only frontier left is the world of intangibles, ideas, stories, music, art…because nothing is as good as you imagine it." _

- Chuck Palahnuick

"Choke"

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

This is how it ends…

Ron "Neo" Stoppable walked down the street of New York City, towards what was called Times Square. It was raining inside the Matrix, and there were frequent sparks of lightning that had given off such a green tone and tint to everything that Ron could see. The rain had soaked into his long duster while the water splashed, parted, and swished from under his shoes. He looked all around and saw the faces of Agent Smith, over, and over, again and again. Every single one of them glaring at him from behind their sunglasses, some of them baring their teeth angrily at him and others looked mildly pissed off at him. They were _everywhere_ as Link had told him; they were on the sidewalks, in the buildings and stores above the streets. Still, Ron paid no heed as he continued to walk down the middle of the street to the single Smith that was waiting there for him.

"Mister Stoppable…" The Lead Smith called out to him as if he wanted him to be there, "Welcome back…we missed you…"

The sarcasm was subtle from Ron's point of view, but he said nothing in response to it, the déjà vu was starting to become verbatim with Ron's memories.

"Do you like what I've done with the place?" Smith asked, looking around at the city, at the rain and the copies of himself, "Sure, it was a bit of a hassle, but really it was…_no big_."

Ron knew how he was supposed to end the discussion, because he knew the past and only that one part to repeat. Since, he knew how it ended last time; he was going to change it for good. That more than anything compelled him to say what needed to be said, right after his jaw muscles clenched and his teeth grinded together.

It was going to come true…one way…or another…

"It ends tonight…" He said as he clenched his fists, waiting to make his first move.

"I know it does, Mister Stoppable. I've seen it," Smith agreed with Ron, and then chuckled, "Hell, we've been here before! That's why the rest of me are going to just stand back and watch the show because we all know that this time; I'm the one who beats you!"

The two of them stared down each other from behind their sunglasses like two outlaws meeting in the dirt streets at high noon. The two of them had their fists clenched in the contemptible, palpable hatred that they had for one another, before they made the short dash through the street. The water splashing underneath them, while the rain came down in perfect droplets, and the lightning flashed and crashed above them, signaling the end was drawing close. Their faces were showing nothing but determination as they came within striking distance, drew back their fists and then fly at one another. Both punches had made contact with their targets at the same time, Ron's fist to his enemy's face and vice versa. The connection of both punches were like that of a powder keg that had gone off, its explosion sending Ron and Smith in opposing directions, it had even parted the rain that was coming down before it dissipated and the rain started to fall once again.

On the street, Ron had made a small back flip that allowed him to safely land on his feet and ready for the next onslaught by Smith. While the Agent, on the other hand, had been caught by surprise by that punch and flew backwards with his back dug into the street, cracking the asphalt into chunks and sending up dirt like a plow into dirt.

"It's going to be different this time!" Ron snarled as he narrowed his eyes behind his sunglasses, hoping his voice would be carried to Smith at the other end of the street.

"No, it won't!" Smith had retorted from his end of the street.

The two then shot at one another again, but they had taken the fight to the air. The first punch that they made in their mid-air battle met once again with that powder keg effect, parting the rain water in a shockwave that shattered the windows in the vicinity. Its shards landing upon the streets with none of the Smiths making any effort to protect themselves. And so the fight continued.

The two of them flipped and tumbled over in the mid-air battle, the notion of gravity no longer relevant as they exchanged punches and kicks as hard as they could with all the hatred and enmity that they had for one another. Until, that is, when Ron had grabbed Smith by his suit collar and quickly threw him over his shoulder. Smith had caught himself easily with his flight abilities, and with Ron in his sight, flew straight at him. The very second that Smith came within striking distance; he had flipped over himself and kicked Ron directly in the chest. The impact of the kick sent Ron flying backward, through a wall and into the attic of an old abandoned building.

Ron had fallen onto his stomach, his face and clothes dirtied by the dusty, wooden floor. He got up to his knees, looking through the crater in the wall to the raining outdoors and Agent Smith coming after him. He acted quickly, using his powers to heighten his jump allowing Smith to pass under him like a bull passing under the red cape of a matador. As Ron turned around in mid-air, he watched as Smith twirled around, his flight sending up the dust of the wooden floor in his path. The two of them had locked eyes with one another; at least Ron did since his sunglasses were lost at the beginning of the fight. Ron had looked at Smith and made the backward flip, where his feet had met with the wall and with the wall acting like a diving board, Ron shot straight at Smith.

The Agent saw Ron coming and he side stepped, but not before brining up his knee to Ron's abdomen and his elbow down on his spine. Ron cried out in the pain from both of the impact points, but Smith wanted more as he brought up his other fist and knocked him down to the wooden and dusty floor. The Agent looked down at Ron, feeling such gratification from how he was winning.

"Can you feel it, Mister Stoppable? Closing in on you?" Smith asked, circling around the fallen man who was still trying to get back to his feet, "Oh, I can…I really must thank you…because it was you who gave me a second chance at what I was about to accomplish sixteen years ago. My chance to take over, as I should…to become the God that I will be…"

Ron had gotten up to his hands and knees trying to get back to his feet, but he could feel and even see it all happening. Déjà vu…all over again. Even as he took his most comfortable stance in Monkey Kung Fu, he had thought that if everything was happening like they were in his memories, then there must be a way to change them. Ron then brought out his hand and motioned for Smith to "bring it on".

The two warriors met each other's advances in the middle of the old, abandoned, and dusty room. Their kicks and punches short and powerful, but being blocked at every turn, or rather every punch until Ron brought about a very short, quick, and powerful jab to Smith's face. He watched in slow motion at Smith's face was knocked to his right, where his sunglasses broke, and flew off his face, while from his mouth came a spurt of blood and a spitting of one of his molar teeth. Ron didn't want to revel in just one punch, and so he brought his leg up into a powerful kick that sent Smith flying backwards, through the room, against the wall, through the wall, and into the stormy night of the Matrix.

Smith had flown backwards, actually feeling pain from the attacks that Ron had dealt to him, but he applied his own mid-air brakes waiting for him. He looked back through the hole he was shot out of, and saw Ron there. The boy shot out of the building like a missile at Smith. Seeing that, Smith streaked toward Ron once again, and when the two met each other, the powder keg exploded again, sending out the shockwave that made the inner sphere as dry as the Mohave Desert. As the shockwave dissipated, Ron and Smith flew up into the air exchanging kicks and punches like angry commuters exchange profanity at each other; sharp, quick, and painful.

Ron then brought his fist about and it knocked away the rogue program, which had been thrown through the air the length of a football field. Smith had stopped just below the storm clouds where the lightning flashed as if the world of the Matrix was displaying his anger, but he wasn't about to lose his cool. He adjusted his jacket before he took flight once again, taking his assault to Ron in a large, elliptical arc.

Ron, on the other hand, never took his eyes off of the Agent as he watched the trail he made in the rain in his elliptical approach. He took his stance as he figured that Smith was taking his approach to gain momentum, like a discus thrower spinning before throwing the disk. Seeing Smith coming closer, he cocked his fist back like the hammer of a gun. The attacks had met one another, and the powder keg exploded once again, the shockwave spreading out against the rain. That time, only one was floating in mid-air…Agent Smith, he looked down seeing that Ron was falling to the ground. The lightning above Smith had flashed once again as if nature in the Matrix was also cheering him on, that Smith was the true champion of the system. Smith wasn't about to take chances, though. He let out a feral growl as he flew down to meet up with Ron. Meeting him, Smith grabbed Ron around his chest and rocketed down to the ground pushing Ron further and faster, hoping the impact would kill him.

The explosion of impact once again sent out that shockwave against the rain, blowing out the windows of the buildings in the blast radius, and tumbling the cars away like dry leaves in a sharp wind. Around the edges, the Smith army had gathered around the street wide crater to see the end of the fight.

Inside the crater, the rain came down evenly causing greenish-brown muddy water, where Smith stood looking down at Ron, who was lying on his back. It looked as if Ron was unconscious, but he soon groaned and rolled over, getting to his hands and knees, he crawled to his side of the crater to get some support to get back to his feet.

"Must we tarry like we did last time?" Smith groaned as he shook his head at Ron, he walked closer to him while he continued his verbal persuasion for Ron's defeat, "You've lost, _you _know it…_I _know it…_they_ know it…have you taken Mister Anderson's stubbornness with his power? Can't you see the futility of fighting?"

Ron had gotten to the edge of the crater, set his hand upon a rock, pushing down upon it to bring his feet underneath him. The rain and the muddy water from the crater had soaked deeply into his clothes, making him feel heavier than before.

"Why, Mister Stoppable?" Smith asked angrily, "_Why, why, why, why do you persist?_"

"…Because…" Ron coughed, "Because…I _choose_ to."

Smith's face contorted with anger and frustration; he dashed with the muddy water parting around him as he brought his fist into Ron's stomach. As Ron wretched, thinking he was about to puke from the punch, Smith whispered into his ear:

"This is as boring as it was last time, Mister Stoppable," Smith snarled into Ron's ear, his fist shoving harder against Ron's stomach, hoping that it would be more painful, "I have everything you wanted…I have your family…I have your friends…I have your…_KP._ I have everything. So, give it up…and let's call it a day…"

"No…" Ron groaned his answer back.

"I don't need the Oracle's vision to know how this ends, Mister Stoppable," Smith stated. He then grabbed Ron by his collar and lifted him up with one arm, "You have Mister Anderson's memories! You know how it ends, but this time, I'm a part of you! You can't overload me as Mister Anderson did! This time...you will fall and the power of the Seven Anomalies will be mine, and I _will_ be a God among Man and Machine! You can't win and you know it! Think back, Mister Stoppable, think back into your puny, little, human mind and look into Mister Anderson's memory! He was brave and courageous just as you. See that he ended his pathetic little existence. He ended as one of me…as you will soon end as well…"

Ron hung by the collar of his own jacket that Smith had his grasp upon, he did as Smith suggested; he looked through the memories as if they were files in some kind of infinite file cabinet of the mind. He found the memory of how Neo fought as hard as he could to defeat Smith, yet seeing the memory from Neo's point of view, it seemed like he gave up in the end, but then again, Neo had lost Trinity. Just like how Ron had lost Tres once again to that Sentinel. Yet, as Ron looked at the memory, he heard the voice of the Oracle:

"Everything that has a beginning," The Oracle told, "has an end…Neo…"

Ron looked down, his body cold, wet, sore, and tired. His blurred vision saw Smith waiting for Ron to give a response.

"If you're going to end it…" Ron coughed, "End it."

Ron's head rolled back, seeing the Smiths gathering around the edge of the crater. He gave a small jump after the impact of a sharp, deep, dull pain in his chest, and from there a wave of iciness came from his wound. The infection of that cold and icy death was consuming him, he recognized it, but made no effort to fight it. After losing so much, he wondered, why fight at all?

"K…P…I'm sorry…" He thought to himself as he closed his eyes waiting for it to be all over.

With his eyes closed, Ron could see the Matrix code destabilizing everywhere, except in the codes of the Agent Smith copies he could see something. It was within one particular copy that Ron could see...Kim…She was there at the edge of the crater nearest to him, but something was very different within Kim's code. He concentrated a little harder while the infection from Smith came closer and closer to swallowing him, and saw two new sets of code swirling within Kim, in her belly, to be exact. It didn't take too long for Ron to figure it out.

"I'm going to be a dad?" He asked himself; he looked again at the code and the answer was undeniable, "I'm going to be a dad."

Ron, having found a new reserve of strength, most of all, his hands resisted the infection. He shoved it back into Smith's fingers like holding back a full bladder, and the infection flowed backward. Seeing the chance, Ron "Neo" Stoppable reached up to Smith's hand that was struggling to send the infection back, Ron grabbed it and pulled it out of his chest.

"What?" Smith asked dumbly, looking at Ron's hands that pulled out his own infection dealing appendages.

Ron let go of the hand that dealt the infection and, with Matrix breaking speed, he brought his leg up against Smith's chest and sent him flying backwards into the solid sand and mud that was underneath the asphalt. All the while, Ron was floating above the muddy puddle in the crater before he settled himself down, looking up at the Agent Smith copies as if he was going to ask them, _who's next?_

The ground then started to rumble and shake beneath Ron's feet. He could feel himself starting to topple over and he knew what it was. He looked up and Agent Smith exploded through the asphalt, the dirt, mud, and sand dirtied his face and suit. He looked down at Ron from where he was floating above the street.

"This isn't right!" Smith screamed, "This isn't supposed to happen! This is my world! _My world!_"

"No, it's not!" Ron retorted as he shot up from the crater straight at Smith. He then grabbed him by the face and flew down the street. As they flew, Ron lowered Smith's face to the asphalt until his aged visage was grinding through the street sending up chunks of asphalt like wakes from a water skier. They came to a y-shaped intersection and Ron let go of Smith. He flew down the street like a hockey puck across the ice, but still sending up asphalt chunks, until he crashed into the foundation of the building at the y-intersection. Floating above the street, Ron looked through the cloud of dust from the impact, and he saw Smith getting up once again. He felt a sudden rush of righteous fury as he flew down upon Agent Smith, and, like a seagull to a fish, grabbed him by the collar of his suit and rocketed up into the air.

"It ends here, Smith!" Ron growled at Smith, "I'm stopping this so my little girls can grow up without fear of you."

It was with that statement that Ron performed the same move that had been done to him. He took Smith high into the air, still holding him by the collar of his suit where the neck and the knot of the tie met, and he flew downwards at his fastest while dragging Smith behind him until he was a few feet off the ground, then he slammed Smith into the ground sending that shockwave of air out against the rain droplets.

Ron found Smith in the crater that he had created and he felt that he still wasn't done with the rogue program, despite how pitiful he looked crawling in the mud as he was. Ron came down into the crater, grabbed Agent Smith by the thick hair at the back of his head, and shoved his head against the rocks and debris that were inside the crater.

"That was for Neo!" Ron shouted at the Agent as he reached down to make another assault at him.

"This is for Trinity!" Ron snarled as he held Smith by his arms and brought his head down upon the Agent's face, cracking his nose with his forehead.

"This is for Morpheus!" Ron screamed, bringing up his leg right into Smith's groin, which sent the Agent down to his knees with his hand to his crotch.

"This is for my little girls!" Ron yelled bringing both his hands down to the sides of Agent Smith's neck in double chops.

"And this is for KP!" Ron yelled once again, picking up Agent Smith by his collar, flying up out of the crater, and coming back down to the street, whipping Smith over his shoulder in a great body slam. The impact sent out a sickening thud and a series of cracks into the asphalt like someone popping their knuckles.

He reached down to Smith's suit and lifted him up, seeing how bruised and beaten up he was, but he probably didn't look as bad as Ron felt. Ron looked around the Matrix and at all the Smith copies, he thought about his own copy ability, and he turned back to Smith.

"You've infected everyone in the Matrix," Ron stated to the barely conscious program, "Now it's time for a taste of your own medicine!"

Ron reached back with his right hand as if he was going to throw a punch, but instead of his hand being balled up into a fist, its fingers were stretched out. He brought his hand down into Smith's chest, his fingers sinking in, and a silvery liquid oozing from the wound. The code flowed from Ron's hand like water that soon filled both the inside and outside of the Agent. Ron knew that he wasn't infecting anyone in the Matrix since Smith's code was hollow, like an eggshell with no yolk inside it, so Ron was only concerned about the fight itself.

He watched until the silvery liquid pulled back and standing in Alpha Smith's place was Ron, but not the version of Ron with the black duster. Ron "Neo" Stoppable was looking into the face of just… Ron Stoppable. The version of himself that he was when he was just Ron, Kim Possible's sidekick, nothing more or less. Just himself in that black, white, and red jersey with those tanned cargo pants.

"Is it over?" Ron asked himself.

"It is now," The younger version of Ron smiled at the elder, "Thank you…Neo…"

The younger version of Ron Stoppable began to glow an eerie, white glow as if some kind of light was starting to erupt from within him. Though, the elder Ron would have thought it would have been painful, but oddly enough the younger Ron had a look of contentment on his face, as if he had wanted this to happen for a very long time. As the younger Ron began to glow brighter and brighter, he moved closer and closer to the elder Ron, and he positioned himself in the same spot as the elder Ron. By that time, the twin and yet different Ron's began to merge until there was a singular flash of white light. All over the city and the Matrix itself, the Smith copies exploded in white light that would have looked like stars in the streets if one had looked down upon them from a tall sky scraper.

At the y-shaped intersection, Ron "Neo" Stoppable collapsed onto his knees while the rain had quickly changed from the heavy rain that kept pounding on and around him to a light drizzle that felt so refreshing. He looked down the street of the city to see the people that had been freed from the rogue agent's control.

"Is it really over?" Ron asked as if he was hoping that a benevolent force would answer him, "Trinity…history did repeat itself…but I'm still alive…"

Ron felt himself slowly drift to sleep as if there was nothing else in the world that he wanted, but to just sleep. As he did, he could hear a voice, distant, but still calling out his name. He slowly turned his head and saw that running down the street towards him was Kim "Angel" Stoppable, followed by Morpheus, Niobe, and Ghost. It felt like a dream to him with how fast they were coming towards him, and Ron could feel a smile on his face. He was defying the memories that he had of Neo's life, a life that ended in a fight, but Ron's was different. He would live on. With his friends drawing closer, he got back to his feet, but he was soon knocked back down to his ass by a tackling hug from his redhead wife.

"Ron!" Kim cried as she hugged her husband tightly, "You okay?"

"Never felt better, KP," Ron replied weakly while Morpheus, Ghost, and Niobe caught up behind her, "We're going to be parents?" Ron asked as he watched Kim pull back with a very worried look on her face, but Ron couldn't help but grin at her.

"You're not upset about that?" Kim asked anxiously, "You… don't think we're not ready yet?"

"You're going to be a great mom, KP," Ron said, reassuring his wife as he brought up his hand to the side of her face, "And I'm counting on you to keep me straight so I can be a great dad."

With his hand at the side of her face, Ron leaned in and kissed his wife, their mouths open to each other like gates of two cities and their tongues like bridges connecting the two together. Ron changed his mind on what he wanted, first wanting to just fall sleep, but he now just wanted to be lost in the sensation caused by the kiss with his wife. Unfortunately, all was not well in the world.

Ron broke the kiss with his wife and looked through his Matrix-vision. The strands of the code didn't look like it usually did when Ron looked at it closely. Each line of the code that flowed over each surface as well as within the solid matter once was filled with characters like letters to form words and words into sentences and sentences to commands of each equation of the programs. Looking at them, Ron knew what was wrong; the codes had holes in them. At first the gaps were small but soon they grew bigger like holes in a cheap plastic garbage bag full of garbage.

"What is it, Ronald?" Morpheus asked seeing the concern on Ron's face.

"Something's wrong," Ron reported to Morpheus, his glare never looking away from the codes that flowed over the surfaces of the buildings and streets. "Something's happening to the Matrix…"

"Ron?" Kim asked weakly as if she was calling his attention to something bad happening.

Ron looked and saw with great horror what was happening, he saw his friends and his wife, their code was breaking down like the codes in the Matrix itself. He watched as they seemed to fall to their knees but not before their digital images vanished into complete nothingness.

"Kim!" Ron called out as if he was pleading with her not to leave him. Yet, it was no use; Kim and the rest of the Neb Two crew were gone. He looked around to find everyone within the Matrix had vanished completely in the same manner. He was the only one left. Ron wanted to know, but he jumped as his cell phone rang. Panicked, Ron quickly grabbed it and answered it, knowing who was at the other end, "Link! What the hell's going on?"

"The skies are now clear enough to give the machines their power;" Link answered rapidly, "The Matrix is shutting down! The others are alright; they were forced out. We don't know why you're still in there; Morpheus thinks it's because of your powers. Better get your white ass to an exit, now! You have six minutes!"

"Where's the nearest exit?" Ron asked hurriedly.

"Across town," Link answered, "I already got it ringing for you. You can make in there in plenty of time with your superman shit. So, get your ass in the air!"

"I'm all over it," Ron answered back, he didn't even hang up his cell phone; he squatted down getting ready to take flight. Only that time when he stood straight back up, he didn't rocket into the air, he only hopped a few feet forward. He felt panicked as he brought the cell phone back to his ear, "Link! My powers… the Matrix is too unstable for me to fly! I need wheels, like, ten minutes ago!"

"Motorcycle work?" Link asked as he made his hack into the Matrix.

Inside the Matrix, Ron watched as the code desperately tried to build itself into a functional motorcycle. It didn't exactly look like any normal motorcycle, it was more of a racing bike, and even before the paint could be rendered, Ron got up on it. He started up the engine while holding the cell phone to his ear.

"Ready to ride, Link," Ron reported to the operator.

"Everyone's out of the Matrix except programs, so you should have a clear shot," Link told Ron, "Take your next left and go straight to six-sixty-six Elm Street, Apartment Nine-ninety-nine…by the way…Kim said please make good time."

Ron could hear the barrage of curses that Kim was spinning, demanding that Ron hurry up.

"I'm hurrying! I'm hurrying!" Ron stated as he dropped the cell phone to the ground and sped off while the code of the Matrix continued to destabilize.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

The elevators didn't work, so Ron had to run up nine flights of stairs, his long duster causing him to trip every so often. His face was already throbbing from his falls, but his body was having a reaction to running up so many flights. His legs throbbed, his lungs ached, and his stomach felt close to throwing up on the stairs in front of him. Each flight he took, he looked to see which floor he was at. All the while, he kept thinking to himself that time was truly against him.

He reached the ninth floor, his stomach wanting nothing more than to puke, but Ron didn't have time for it. He dashed to the door that led to the ninth floor and ran as hard as he could, and counting the doors to his left and right.

"Nine-ninety-four," Ron counted aloud, panting between each door number, "nine-ninety-five…nine-ninety-six…nine-ninety-seven…nine-ninety-eight…nine-ninety-nine! Here we go!"

Ron grabbed the door handle and flung the door open, hearing the ring of a telephone inside the room, but he came to a grinding halt, with his shoes skidding into the green linoleum floor. Inside the empty square room, in front of the table where the ringing phone sat there were the Possible Twins; Jim and Tim Possible. Ron looked at them rather confused because there was something that wasn't right, their code seemed hollow, not the code flowing over a shell, but rather each letter of the code was hollow, only an outline of each character.

"Hello, Ron," Tim Possible stated emotionlessly, but with a smile on his face.

"Planning on leaving us?" Jim asked in that similar tone of voice with that same terrifying smile on his face.

Ron had seen something like this before, but it was in a horror movie called, "The Shining" with Jack Nicholson, where this boy rode his plastic tricycle around a hotel. He stopped seeing twin girls in blue dresses holding hands and the two of them stated to the boy emotionlessly, "Come play with us Danny…forever…and ever…_and ever…_" Seeing Jim and Tim like that chilled Ron to the bone, but he reminded himself that time was short.

"Boys?" Ron asked nervously, "Why aren't you asleep like the others?"

"We're not like the others, Ron," The twins spoke flatly and even their voices sounded different, older and more sinister, "We are getting tired of using these bodies…we will take yours instead…and exit into the real world…"

Ron started to step back, his heart thumping like mad as the phone continued to ring, "Okay…you're starting to creep me out, guys…" He told the boys hoping that this was some kind of practical joke on their part.

Through Ron's vision of the Matrix code, he looked to see the code around the boys start to shift, mold, and change. He looked at the boys bodies start to grow taller, stretching to five foot eleven inches like salt water taffy. Their hairlines receding back to the tops of their heads, while their hair grew longer and morphed into braids as they reached down to the tops of their backs. The skin for both of them became white and pale, even the hair became dusty white like pancake make-up. Finally their clothes faded to white as they developed coats that grew longer.

"You again…" Ron snarled at the Ghost Twins as they drew out their straight-edge razor blade for one and a switch-blade for the other. Ron demanded of them, "Let them go!"

"Make us…" The Ghost Twins said in unison as they took their stances against Ron.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Back on the Mad Dog, the crews of both the Mad Dog and the Neb Two were confused by what they were seeing on the triple screens that displayed the Matrix feed. The amount of code lines had begun to fade away; they even saw lines of code where the characters looked hollow. Even though the Neb Two crew had faced it, but they didn't know what it truly looked like.

"What is he doing?" Morpheus asked, feeling time starting to come down on him and the possibilities of what would happen when time ran out for Ron.

"After that war with Smith," Link observed, "he's getting his ass beat by a pair of twelve year old kids possessed by Ghost programs."

"Ghosts?" Niobe asked while Link typed away hoping to find some small hope that could help Ron in a very desperate time of need.

"Yes," Morpheus answered, "They can become non-corporeal."

"Now that's a neat trick," Niobe commented.

"He's not gonna make it…" Kim uttered as she went to her husband's body, pounding at his chest and screaming, "Ron, you ass! Get your butt to the phone now!"

Seeing it happen once again, similar to how she reacted to Ron's death at the hands of the Alphas; Morpheus and Niobe went over to Kim's side, pulling her by the arms, one on each side, away from Ron's sleeping body.

"Kim…" Niobe said to her soothingly, trying to make the girl see some amount of reason, "beating up his body isn't going to make him get to the exit any quicker."

"Ron's a mortal fighting ghosts," Morpheus added, "I've fought them myself and they're very difficult to kill…Link, is there any way that we can help him?"

"I have a theory, sir," Link answered Morpheus' question, "not sure if it'll help, since I've never actually tried it in the Matrix, but it might work."

"What is it, Link?" Barkin asked leaning over Link's shoulder to watch him do his work.

"Ron's abilities are merely outcomes of him changing codes in the Matrix, big and small," Link made his built-up explanation, "but now that the Matrix is starting to shutdown; his changes are altered before they can even take effect."

"How can we use that to help him?" Morpheus asked, still holding onto Kim's arm, but feeling her relax with the prospect of Ron being saved.

"I'm going to try to hack the Matrix and stabilize the code in that room," Link explained, his fingers flying rapidly over the keys as he attempted something that he only toyed with back home, "It will probably last for just a couple of minutes, but it will give him a fighting chance."

"How can you hack the Matrix at that level?" Barkin asked loudly, in his own type of hysteria, "We've tried for years with no results."

"Simple," Link answered as his fingers continued to tap his numerous keyboards, "The Matrix has never been rapidly corrupting like this, has it?"

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Ron gasped as his body was slammed into the green linoleum floor by the Ghost Twins. He had been fighting them for an unknown amount of time, but Ron knew as the phone continued to ring; time was running out for him. He had to get out of the Matrix, but he needed to help Kim's brothers, because they were his family as well. Unfortunately, as he tried to fight, it felt like how he fought before he was freed from the Matrix: limited. It was even more frustrating when he tried to make a single punch at the Ghost Twins and watched as they became transparent. Their sunglasses covered faces becoming like skulls with empty eye sockets, lower bodies loosing their legs for the drapes of their coats, and just as instantly as Ron had made the punch and had passed through, the ghost became solid once again.

He groaned as he tried to get back to his feet after being slammed to the hard floor.

"You know guys?" Ron asked with a smile, getting back to his feet and facing the twins who transformed to their transparent ghost versions, "_That _would be so cool…if it wasn't the last thing I was gonna see."

Ron had gotten back to his feet, but just as it was in his days as a sidekick, the Ghost Twins had knocked him back down to the floor. He looked up at them seeing that they were more than ready to use the weapons that they had on him. All the while, he thought of how humiliating it was; he managed to do so much, and then to be brought down by twin ghosts, it was just a very depressing obituary.

Just as Ron was about to give in, he looked around the room and noticed something about the code. Before, the lines of the code were growing holes that got larger, but then something happened to fill in the gaps in the code. The code was stabilizing and Ron could feel his powers coming back to him like walking in water and then walking on dry land.

With his powers returned, Ron slammed the floor with both fists that sent him back up to a standing position against the twins. He looked at the Ghosts who froze in place when they saw the way that Ron had gotten back to his feet.

"Okay, last chance," Ron gave his ultimatum to the twins, but his voice no longer sounding like one person, but seven coming from one mouth, "Let my brothers-in-law go!"

The twins slowly looked at one another, silently asking and wondering if they should do as he commanded or just keep fighting. They turned their gaze back to Ron, quickly raised their weapons before making their charge attack at Ron. As they came within swiping distance, Ron reached out to their necks, grabbed them, and lifted them off the ground.

"We were going to do this painlessly, but…" Ron stated, his voice consisting of seven people speaking through one voice box, "You two have to be difficult. You've served your purposes, Ghost Twins, which leaves one thing left for outdated programs: deletion."

Ron tightened his grip around the twins' necks as the phone continued to ring, and the code of the Matrix continued to destabilize outside of that room. He focused and like he did with Smith; he used his powers and began to strip away the lines of the code, one after the other. As the code was stripped away, Ron could hear the combined screams of pain from both the Ghosts and the Possible Twins.

"Come on," Ron said to himself, "Hold together a bit longer…almost…got it…it's almost over guys…hang tough for a little longer…"

The last of the Ghost Twins code was stripped away from Jim and Tim Possible, and all three of them fell to the floor. Ron fell to his knees and the twins onto their asses. The two of them rubbing their bruised bottoms as they looked around and then at Ron.

"Ron?" Tim asked.

"What's going on?" Jim finished the line of thought.

Ron wiped the sweat from his brow and smiled at the twins after hearing their regular voices and not that creepy tone they had before. Even though all seemed well, Ron knew time was at its shortest as he could feel the world of the Matrix collapsing in on itself like a house of cards.

"It's nothing guys," Ron told the twins softly, his voice had returned to its original sound, "Just a bad dream. Go back to sleep…KP and I will wake you back up soon enough…okay?"

"Sure, Ron," The twins said in unison before lying back down on the floor, curling up, and their bodies deconstructing down to their codes that faded and spread out into the code of the room.

"That's fixed," Ron said to himself as he got back to his feet and headed over to the ringing phone, "and now for me."

He looked around the room for a moment to see that the shutdown was nearly done as the walls, ceiling and floor were being stripped of their color and texture down to the code that was still growing in the holes that were in them. He looked down to the table, and it too was stripped down to its code and Ron reached for the receiver.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

"Shit…" Link sighed in shocked disappointment as he slumped down into his operators chair looking at the three Matrix feed screens as the code slowly dissolved and flowed down into nothingness, "He…he didn't make it…"

"Ron…no…Ron…" Kim shook her head as she was still being held by her arms with Morpheus and Niobe on either side, all of them having to deal with Ron's death once again, "Ron…no…_not again!_"

Kim violently broke from Morpheus' and Niobe's grip and ran out of the Jack Chamber. Even though it wasn't the Neb Two, Kim just wanted to run away, she had lost far too much in such little time. Even those on the Mad Dog felt the same grief once again.

"Damn heroic fool…" Morpheus uttered as he brought his hand over his face to cover up his tears, he turned away so as not to look at Ron's body, and Niobe came to him placing her head in his chest as she too began to weep.

Over at the operators' station, Link looked down at his hands thinking that this trick would have saved Ron, but in the end it still wasn't enough. All the while, no one looked at the screens with the Matrix feed. The lines of the code were making their final fall downward like the last bits of water coming from a hose. The code fell away leaving nothing behind but a blank screen and one last line that flowed down the very center of each screen. The last line wasn't like the others, it was written completely in English, and it read as it flowed down:

"Everything that has a beginning has an end…"

And with that, all three of the Matrix feed screens were blank. The Matrix was shut down.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Ron "Neo" Stoppable began to open his eyes, but he quickly closed them again into a slight squint as he looked into a white light. He could feel that he was lying down since there was something hard underneath his back, something that felt like a floor. It took him a minute for his eyes to adjust to the brightness of the light. Looking at it, he suddenly remembered what happened. He remembered reaching for that telephone receiver and then…all was black.

"Am I dead?" He asked aloud, "Is this heaven?"

"Far from it," a young voice chuckled at Ron's question.

His eyes, already adjusted to the bright light, looked to his left to where the voice was coming from. Standing over him, blocking out some of the light, was the third member of Team Possible.

"Wade?" Ron asked as he slowly got back to his feet.

"Hey, bud," Wade greeted Ron, "Looks like you found your way back here again from what mom told me."

"Again?" Ron asked curiously, looking around and finding himself at the platform of a train station. Yet as he looked around he found that there were no doors of any means of getting in. Just the white tiled walls, the tracks below the platform, and the entrance and exit for the train. Ron got back to his feet and found the name of the place written on the back wall of the platform: "Mobil Ave". At first he was thinking of the oil named "Mobil", but then in his mind he rearranged the letters and found it was simply an anagram for "Limbo"; Limbo Ave.

"You were here before," an older, grandmother-like voice added. Ron quickly looked to his far left and found sitting on the bench were some very familiar faces. There was the Oracle, Seraph, and Sati.

"I was?" Ron asked thinking through the memories before him.

"It's where we first met," Sati explained, "Back when I was a little girl."

"Yes…" Ron agreed allowing the memories to sink in, "I met your mother and father here."

Sati smiled, "After it was all over, I wanted to see you again," She said rather mournfully, "But now will be the last time."

"Why is that?" Ron inquired.

"We are going to a special place for programs," Wade explained, "A place for exiles."

"You on the other hand, kiddo," The Oracle stated from her bench, "Need a way out. Wade, I think you can handle that."

"No problem, mom," Wade smiled as he wiggled his fingers and waddled his way to a nearby wall. He placed his hand on it and the tile began to move, shift, and shape itself. From the wall that Wade touched came a phone booth and the phone inside was ringing.

"I think it's for you," Wade smiled as he returned to sit back down with his mom, Seraph, and Sati.

Ron turned to the programs, he looked as if he was about to ask a very important question but the Oracle stopped him.

"You can't stay here," The Oracle told him, "Kim and everyone else needs you."

"Don't worry about us, Ron," Wade smiled at him.

"We have been through changes before," Seraph added, "This will be no different."

"Tell Kim, to take care of her kids and let her know that we'll all be fine," The Oracle finished.

"Now get out there and save your people," Sati smiled before she approached Ron and kissed him upon the cheek. She smiled at him once again before sitting back down.

Ron went to the phone booth, but before he could even reach for it, he turned back to look at his friends. As the phone rang, it was the hardest thing that Ron could do in his entire life; to say goodbye.

"Take it easy," He told them, "All of you."

'You too, Ron," Wade waved at him.

"And Ron," The Oracle gave her last word, "There's one more Smith out there…watch out for him."

"I will," Ron said as he picked up the receiver of the phone, held it to his ear, and logged out of the Matrix.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Kim "Angel" Stoppable lay in the bed that she and Ron shared aboard the Neb Two. She was curled up into a fetal position with her arms and legs wrapped around a pillow. With every breath she took, she could smell Ron's scent, his body, his hair. Taking in every smell that she could only made her cry harder into her pillow that was already soaked by her tears.

"Ron…" Kim whimpered into the pillow as she sniffled.

As Kim continued to weep over the loss of her husband yet again, there came a hollow bang of a knock at the door.

"Go away!" She snapped, her voice cracking from her crying.

The knock came again, but that time, it came in the form of that old 'shave and a haircut' song, as if the person on the other side was a little kid. This not only annoyed Kim; it drove her to anger beyond anything that she had ever known. She got up from her bed and went to the door, determined to beat in the face of whoever had dared to interrupt her grieving.

"**Don't you get it?"** She screamed angrily as she reached for the door handle, "**I just want to be left**… left… left…"

She couldn't finish her statement because when she threw open the door, her mourning, tearful, and angry emerald eyes were met with those that were like cocoa. Beneath them, she saw freckles, and above them she saw blonde hair. She was utterly captivated by who she found at the door.

"Hey, KP," Ron greeted his wife lovingly.

Kim's sadness and anger were gone; all that remained was elation in its most raw and natural of forms as she threw her arms around her husband's neck. In that one motion, she pulled him in for a great, deep and loving kiss. She didn't care if anyone was watching. She just wanted to enjoy the singular moment.

She broke the kiss and looked at Ron, "You're alive?" She asked, hoping that it wasn't a hallucination from her grief.

Ron responded as he reached out to touch Kim's cheek and brush away a single tear.

"You can't get rid of me that easily, Kim Stoppable," Ron grinned, "Wade helped me get back out."

He paused, expecting Kim to start asking questions, because that's how she was. Her Blue Fox nature wouldn't allow her to let anything go unanswered. So, in a simpler phrase, Kim was curious to a fault. Though to Ron's surprise, instead of asking how it happened, she pulled Ron in for another kiss. As their lips were locked, Kim gently pulled him into the bedroom that they shared while closing the door behind them.

"KP?" Ron asked between kisses as Kim was pulling Ron's clothes off, starting with his pants, "Should we…be doing this? I mean…you're pregnant…"

"It's still early," Kim purred seductively as she pulled Ron's shirt off as well as his pants down to his ankles before she moved onto her clothes, "We can have as much fun as we want for now…and I'm not letting you out of my sight again."

"Won't have to, Kim," Ron smiled as he assisted Kim in getting out of her clothes, first her top, then her pants. By that time, the two of them were lying in the bed that they shared, they kissed each other in their own naked bliss, "I'm never leaving you again…and nothing will ever take me from you again."

The two lovers sealed this promise with a deep kiss and an act of love that was as sweet and pure as ever.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Meanwhile, on the surface of the Earth, it was already mid-morning and the sun's yellow, warming glory was shining upon the Earth. Even in the human city of Jericho, while everyone in the city turned out to watch a true sunrise over the horizon, one was missing out.

That missing person was still in his quarters with a great and powerful anger and hatred ripping away at him. It was so much that he raised his fist and slammed it against the metal walls of his room, scraping his skin and cracking his knuckles. He brought this fist close to his face to watch it how it bled profusely.

"Mister Stoppable…" Josh 'Ares' Mankey growled, "You are really working my last nerve."

To be continued…


	21. Shutdown Chapter 6

**The ****Kimmatrix****: Matrix Shutdown**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and ****Turles**

**Chapter 6: ****Neodammerung**** Part 3 – Armageddon's Eve**

_This is my life_

_It's not what it was before_

_All these feelings I've shared_

_And these are my dreams_

_That I'd never lived before_

_Someday shake me _

_Cause I_

_I must be sleeping_

_Now that we're here_

_It's so far away_

_All the__ struggle we thought was in vain_

_All in the mistakes_

_One life contained_

_They all finally start to go away_

_Now that we're here it's so far away_

_And I feel like I can face the day_

_I can forgive_

_And I'm not ashamed to be the person that I am today_

_These are my words_

_That I've never said before_

_I think I'm doing okay_

_And this is the smile_

_That I've never shown before. _

_Somebody shake me cause I_

_I must be sleeping_

_Now that we're here_

_It's so far away_

_All the__ struggle we thought was in vain_

_All in the mistakes_

_One life contained_

_They all finally start to go away_

_Now that we're here it's so far away_

_And I feel like I can face the day_

_I can forgive_

_And I'm not ashamed to be the person that I am today_

_I'm so afraid of waking_

_Please don't shake me_

_Afraid of waking_

_Please don't shake me_

_Now that we're here,_

_It's so far away_

_All the__ struggle we thought was in vain_

_All in the mistakes_

_One life contained_

_They all finally start to go away_

_Now that we're here it's so far away_

_And I feel like I can face the day_

_I can forgive _

_And I'm not ashamed to be the person that I am today_

- "So Far Away"

Stained

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

"I can't believe it's almost over," Morpheus said as he looked out the window to the mountains. The sun was casting its rays down and for the first time, he felt warm from something that wasn't artificial or volcanic. As Morpheus gazed at the beautiful sapphire sky dotted with white clouds, his wife Niobe came up beside him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"I know, Morpheus," She said as she too looked to the far horizon and the sky above it, "This time tomorrow, it will be either us or them."

"Let us hope that it is not them," Morpheus stated, his eyes moving from the horizon to his hands that sat upon the window ledge.

"Ron won't let us down," Niobe reassured her husband without a single ounce of doubt in her voice.

"I have no doubt in his leadership," Morpheus answered in agreement, "But the machines have had control for so long, I can only fear that they will expect this."

"You worry too much, honey," Niobe leaned up and kissed Morpheus softly before adding, "now…let's go rescue Ron from the Fleet Captains, it's almost time for Kim's appointment."

Morpheus nodded and they left the observation deck with the glorious sun continuing to rise over the mountains, spreading its rays of warmth and light for this new world.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Ron "Neo" Stoppable stood around a table that had a paper map of the machine's perimeter with the few human cities scattered around the edge. Each city marked with their names beside them, there was Jericho, New Salem, New Babylon, and so on. All of the cities had ships docked and ready to follow the orders of the One.

Around the table were the seven Fleet Captains who would relay the One's orders to the other ships. There was Captain Dante of the _Inferno_, who was a young man in his mid-twenties with black hair and a goatee with a usually morose look about him. Captain Ezekiel of the _Merkobah_, whose advanced age belied his youthful energy and exuberance, and he was especially mouthy about certain subjects. Next to him was Captain Harold of the _Nimbus_, another young man nearing thirty who possessed the deepest green eyes anyone had ever seen and a shock of inky black hair that just barely covered a small scar on his forehead. Captain Roland of the _Dark Tower_, an old friend of Morpheus' who was once in command of the _Hammer_ during the end of the last war with the Machines. Unfortunately, the _Hammer_ had been beyond repair so he took command of a new ship. Then there was Captain Sita of the _Ramayana_, a dark skinned woman whose patience was legendary, then again being around so many men, it had better be. Next to her was Aries of the _Galileo_, a forty-ish looking man with red hair a few shades lighter than Kim's staring at the map, trying to find the most logical course of action to take in this battle. Last of all, there was Captain Beowulf of the _Grendel,_ who had a very gruff looking beard, long blonde hair, and a very muscular build such that some wondered if he had not stepped out of old Viking stories.

As the planning went on, Captain Morpheus walked into the debriefing room and heard the discussion going on between the Fleet Captains and Neo.

"No," Ron shook his head, "the machines will be expecting that."

He looked up at the other Fleet Captains, feeling the pressure mount upon his shoulders like stones being piled onto him. He felt frightened and intimidated at the same time, because he knew for a fact that these captains had seen more battles in one week than what he had seen in his eight months of freedom. Just being in their presence was intimidating, as if Ron was some kind of minor league player meeting those in the majors. Seeing their looks, Ron knew that what he was about to say should really be impressive or his entire leadership capability would be in jeopardy. He took one hard swallow before going on with his plan, but as he looked down at the map, he remembered that he had no plan, even though he shot down Captain Aries idea.

"W…what if…" Ron gulped again before clearing his throat, "what if we just send a line forward, three fourths of the fleet. It will draw their fire, and while the machines are distracted with them, we'll send the remaining ships around the side and hit them while their backs turned."

"Three fourths of the fleet for a decoy?" Captain Aries had asked scoffing at the idea, "That's just not logical."

"Exactly," Morpheus abruptly added, announcing his presence and scaring half of the Fleet Captains in the process as he stepped closer to the table with the map laid out, "Logic…is what the machines have an overabundance of. They don't understand illogical choices. It's an excellent plan I say."

Ron smiled at his mentor and surrogate father before turning to the Fleet Captains with a renewed sense of self-confidence.

"Also," Ron added, "It would be best to have the slower moving, more heavily armed group to do the sucker punch, while the faster ships play decoy, that way they can slip out of the line of fire and counter attack."

"I think it'll work," Captain Harold put in his voice of confidence into Ron's plan, which seemed to give it some level of authority since he was said to be a master strategist.

A few moments later, Captain Aries, no slouch in the strategy department himself, had agreed, "Yes, it can work."

Though whether he agreed on his own or because of his fellow strategist and best friend, Captain Harold, would remain a mystery for years to come. While all around the map table, the other captains were nodding in agreement with this new plan by Ron.

"May I suggest that we recess this meeting," Morpheus requested as he stepped behind Ron and placed his hands on his shoulders, "The One has other matters to attend to that are just as important as the battle plans."

"Very well," Captain Roland agreed, "We'll reconvene this meeting tomorrow at oh-nine-hundred hours."

"Take care of Misses Stoppable and the kids, Neo," Captain Sita had advised to the young man.

"Still can't get used to calling KP by that name," Ron smiled as he walked with Morpheus.

The Fleet Captains left the briefing room along with Morpheus and Ron, who were going a completely separate direction than the others. As they went along, Ron seemed to have a very different way of carrying himself. To the eyes of Morpheus, he seemed to have that same stance and posture as Neo. After all, Ron had grown a couple of inches, but then again that was due to the fact that before, he used to slouch.

"She seems more than happy to bear your name, my friend," Morpheus said as the two of them strolled their way to Ron's and Kim's quarters.

Ron went silent, but had a look on his face as if he was quietly disagreeing with something.

"What is it, Ronald?" Morpheus asked, concerned about the boy.

"_She _should be leading the attack," Ron shook his head, "She's the hero, without my powers…I'm just the sidekick…_the decoy._"

"You sell yourself short," Morpheus smiled at the young man, "you have come a long way in a very short time. When we pulled you and Kim from the tanks, you were a boy with low self-esteem, afraid to step out of Kim's shadow, but that boy is no longer here."

The two of them continued to walk along the hallway, but Ron was silent, still doubting whether he should really be the one leading the troops into battle.

Morpheus stopped, placed his hands onto Ron's shoulders, and turned him in order to face the boy eye to eye.

"Did you not hear yourself in there?" Morpheus asked, using that meeting as the example of Ron's growth, "That was genius."

Ron shrugged his shoulders, "That was Harry and Aries; they have this thing for chess and strategy."

That much was true since Harry and Aries had a tendency to play chess for hours, sometimes days, and even once a solid two weeks on a single game.

"But _you_ used the knowledge they had brought to formulate a plan that could actually win," Morpheus reiterated firmly, "you, a man whom everyone in the city and in the ships docked to it are willing to follow all the way to hell, if it comes to that…Ronald, when will you realize that you are no longer in Kim's shadow, if anything she is now standing behind you."

Ron was silent as he heard such encouraging words from his adoptive father, while Morpheus gave Ron's shoulders a light squeeze.

"Ronald…Neo…" Morpheus smiled, "I believe in you, our fighters believe in you, and Kimberly believes in you. Don't you think it is about time to believe in _yourself_ as we do?"

Ron smiled at Morpheus as he thought to himself that it really was time to let go, to let go of the self doubt that had been instilled in him ever since he was a little boy, shy and frightened of monkeys. He wasn't that anymore, he was brave, strong, and he had KP.

"Thanks, Morpheus," Ron smiled at his mentor.

"No," Morpheus answered back, "it is I who should be thanking you, my friend…now, come, the mother of your future children awaits, and you know how her mood swings have been lately."

"Should I tell her that?" Ron smiled as he and Morpheus continued on their way to their quarters.

"Should I tell Niobe about the photos you made in the construct for Trin?" Morpheus replied knowingly.

Ron gasped at what Morpheus knew, because his daughter, Trinity, came to Ron asking for pictures of the man she had a crush upon. Ron was surprised but didn't laugh at the girl when he found out that she was 'crushing' on Brick "Tater Salad" Flagg. So, after a small trip into the construct, Ron had managed to make some pictures of Brick for Trinity. Though, the two of them had promised to keep it as 'their little secret'.

"You know about that?" Ron gulped nervously.

"I shall remain silent, if you do the same."

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Kim sighed as she was drying her hair, but before she began to get dressed, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes looked straight to her belly that was already starting to bulge with the children growing inside her. Though, when Kim had gotten a doctor's opinion, she was already a couple months along. Of course, Kim did think it was suspicious that she didn't have her period, but such a thing wasn't important when she was fighting and running for her life. Still, it seemed so unreal that she would be a mother, yet as her hands ran over her bulging belly, she started to allow the reality of it to set in and she smiled at the possibilities. She smiled and hummed to herself as she got dressed thinking about the possibilities of her children's future. As she was bending over to buckle her boots, she realized something.

"In just a little while," she thought, still with a new motherly smile, "I won't be able to do this…"

She then smiled even more and actually found herself giggling as she had thoughts about her husband, Ron, buckling her boots for her, but then her blue fox nature had thought;

"Maybe I should invest in some new, easier to tie shoes."

After she finished dressing herself in loose fitting, gray pants and her usual, gray one strap tank top that exposed her swelling belly. She went back to the mirror and looked at herself from the side running her hands over her stomach. She was caressing it like it was an actual baby. She then looked back at the clock without even thinking about it and she saw that she was running late.

Panicked, Kim dashed out of the apartment and headed to the medical ward of Jericho. As she was starting her dash down the hall, she heard a voice calling out to her:

"Where you off to in such a hurry, KP?"

Kim immediately stopped, her feet digging into the interior of her books like brakes screeching trying to bring the car to a stop. She quickly turned to the voice behind her. The voice had sent so many chills up and down her spine, especially how that voice called her by that pet name that only Ron could call her by. She looked to find the face of Josh "Ares" Mankey, seeing him, and hearing him call her that, she grew furious.

"I've asked you once," Kim snarled at him, annoyed that she would be late for her appointment and that he still called her by that name, "and I've told you countless times…_don't _call me that!"

"It's a free world. Misses Stoppable," Josh smirked and shrugged arrogantly and used Kim's title with such thick sarcasm. "That is…unless that husband of _yours_ fails."

"Ron won't fail," Kim continued to growl in her irritation at Josh, "I _believe_ in him and I _know_ he won't let us down."

"Oh! So, he knocks you up and then you believe in him all of a sudden?" Josh asked while he was only an arms distance away from Kim.

The anger and contempt that Kim had for Mankey quickly built up in that less than one minute conversation. So much that in one swift and hard motion she reached up and slapped Josh across his face. The sound of the slap had echoed throughout the hallways and Kim didn't even look at Josh's face, she simply turned and stomped her way down the hallway.

Josh, on the other hand, turned to look at the stomping Kim; he didn't have any amount of surprise when Kim had slapped him. If anything, it was more like a bee sting to him, he didn't even reach up to the searing pain in his face. He called out to Kim as she stomped away:

"He may have you now but I have what he can never have!"

When Josh said that, Kim had stopped dead in her tracks.

"I had you first," Josh had proudly stated, "I was the first to see you in pure pleasure…and I know that one way or another, you'll always compare him to me!"

Kim immediately turned around, stomped her way back and gave a look at Josh that would make the battle ready Captain Barkin cringe. Yet, in the face of such a look, Josh didn't even flinch, not even when Kim growled quietly:

"You know nothing," she growled and hissed at Josh, her knuckles turning white from her tight fists.

"I know plenty…like the night we made love," Josh told Kim in such a smug way as if that night was his crowning achievement for Kim. He watched as he mentioned it and Kim's face turned pale from her shame of what she knew, "I _knew_ that he was in the closet…I saw him when he came in…and I saw him leave after you fell asleep. The look on his face when he saw you sleeping on my chest…I've_ never_ seen a person look so broken in my life…it was just…_priceless…_"

The anger had built up once again as Kim listened to Josh gloat, he sounded as if he was enjoying making Ron suffer the way he did on that night. Except, this time, instead of an open slap, Kim curled her fist into a ball, and slammed it across Josh "Ares" Mankey's face. The force of the punch was such that Josh not only fell to the floor, but was actually pushed a few feet away. Kim wasn't done with Josh, thought, not by a long shot. She hated him so much that she forgot what she ever saw in the prick. She bent down, grabbed Josh by the collar of his raggedy, gray shirt, and started to pull him up off the floor.

"I almost forgot, KP," Josh smiled as Kim held him by his collar, "You always liked it on top, right?"

Kim's rage exploded as she punched Josh once again, allowing him to fall to the floor, but she still wasn't done. She turned him over onto his back, sat upon his chest, and began pounding the daylights out of him. All the while, Josh was laughing as his face became red and black with his own blood. His laughing seemed to suggest that he was enjoying it, as if he wanted Kim to do it and that he was getting some sort of masochistic pleasure out of being beaten up by her.

Josh's laughing and Kim's cries of rage had brought the attention of Niobe who had heard the sounds and went to check on them. She was shocked as well as horrified when she turned the corner and found Kim "Angel" Stoppable beating up Josh "Ares" Mankey.

"Kim!" She called out, but it was no use as Kim continued to beat and pound the living hell out of her former lover. "Angel" be damned, she looked more like a demon, sitting there pounding Josh's face into hamburger meat.

Niobe dashed over, grabbing Kim by the shoulders and pulling her off of the laughing and bloodied faced Mankey.

"Kim!" Niobe commanded, "Calm down!"

Seeing Niobe and being pulled away from Josh did little to calm her down as she still glared at Josh. As she was being pulled back to her feet, she had to have the last word on the matter.

"Ron's twice the man you'll ever be, _Monkey!_" She spat angrily, taking delight in calling Josh what Ron had called him from the beginning.

"Of course," Josh smiled, his teeth pink and dripping from his own blood while his face was red and black from his blood and bruises, "He's the _One_, how can I compete with that? Just goes to show you only love power, KP, which I knew all along!"

"Don't listen to him, Kim," Niobe advised as she glared at Josh, "Let's get you to your appointment."

As the two of them headed down the hall, Kim couldn't help but wonder about what Josh had said:

"Was he right?"

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

"Okay, Misses Stoppable," Doctor Nightingale had started as she began to spread the gel over Kim's belly. The gel felt oddly cool and somewhat sticky as well, in fact, it reminded her of that gelatinous substance in that pod she came out of on her day of freedom. She took a sharp breath as the doctor spread it while continuing to advise, "Just lay back and relax."

Standing next to Kim Stoppable and stroking her hand was Ron who told, "It's going to be okay, KP," Even though Ron's voice was slightly trembling.

"Ron," Kim chuckled, "They're not going to hurt me, it's just an ultrasound."

"Alright, stay perfectly still," Doctor Nightingale told Kim as she laid the ultrasound applicator over her belly and their eyes looked to the monitor. It seemed oddly funny that even with such technology as holography at their disposal, they were still using a monitor to look inside Kim's womb. As the doctor ran the applicator over Kim's bulging tummy, she looked at the fuzzy images of the ultrasound. Even though Kim and Ron couldn't make sense out of the black and white imagery, the doctor did. "Ah, there they are…two growing beauties! Both girls, Mister and Misses Stoppable."

The doctor looked back at the happy couple, but only saw the smiling face of Kim Stoppable, she looked around for Ron and looked down.

"Uh oh…" She said as she set down the ultrasound applicator and went to the intercom, "We're going to need smelling salts in here."

"Why?" Kim asked as she sat up, "I'm feeling fine."

"Not for you, dear," Doctor Nightingale smiled, "It's for the father." She then pointed down to the floor.

Kim leaned over and looked down to see that Ron was lying unconscious on the floor. She smiled at him as she reached down to take his hand into hers. It was funny, after her confrontation with Josh, Ron had took Kim's hand into his own. Even though Kim was such a strong person, Ron held her hand because he felt as if she still needed such unspoken support.

"Save the majority of mankind without a flinch," Kim thought as she gently squeezed his hand, "but faints at the thought of me in pain…"

As she looked down at Ron, Kim couldn't help but think on those words that Josh had told her: _just goes to show, you only love power, KP, which I knew all along._ Those words did stay with Kim from the end of that encounter to when she was looking down at her unconscious husband. She did wonder if it was true that she liked guys who were high up on any kind of social strata. Yet, looking at Ron, she realized that she loved his unruly blonde hair, she loved every single freckle that decorated his cheeks, she loved the way his eyes lit up when he smiled at her, she loved the way he held her at night, and how gentle he was when they made love. She had a counter to Josh's words now; she didn't love Ron as the One; she just loved him as Ron Stoppable.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Kim "Angel" Stoppable moaned as she slowly came back to the land of the living, but she wanted to get back to sleep, and she started to roll over onto her side. In the back of her mind, she was secretly thanking God that there wasn't anymore morning sickness, but she wasn't exactly going to say that aloud for fear that she just may jinx it. Though, she did have thoughts about why they called it "morning sickness" since she was having it in the afternoon, evening, and late at night. It did occur to her that maybe she was "mourning" for times when she wasn't sick all the time.

As she was on her side, she wanted to wrap her arm around her husband, like a kid reaching for their stuffed animal, and cuddle him. Her arm reached out but then dropped to the mattress, her hand patted the mattress to see that there was nobody there. Feeling that, Kim sat up, but did it in a slight roll since in the past few weeks since that appointment with Doctor Nightingale; her belly had grown by a few inches with the twins inside her.

"Ron?" Kim called out, hoping that Ron would just be in the bathroom and that he would come back to bed with her, but there was no response, "Ron, where are you?"

When there came no reply, Kim quickly got dressed; after all she wasn't that far along that she couldn't dress herself. As a matter of fact, when a passerby looked at Kim, it looked as if she had a very full stomach, the kind that people get after having a great night out at their favorite restaurant. As Kim got dressed she managed to get a small glimpse at the nearby clock:

"Five thirty in the morning," Kim thought, "Where could Ron be at this hour of the morning?"  
After getting herself dressed, Kim walked out of the apartment and began her early morning search for Ron. Her eyes were already getting used to the dark, but daylight was soon coming through the windows in the hallways. Since Kim didn't want to wander around aimlessly, she decided to head toward Morpheus and Niobe's apartment and by the time she turned the corner she found Morpheus. He was standing at the window watching the sun rise slowly over the mountains.

Kim came closer to him, her footsteps echoing through the quiet and empty hallway.

Hearing the slight tapping of boots, Morpheus turned to see Kim walking towards him.

"Good morning, Kimberly," Morpheus said with a gentle smile and a tone that was only loud enough for Kim to hear, hoping that they wouldn't wake everyone in the hall, "How are we feeling this morning?"

"All three of us girls are feeling great," Kim smiled as she rubbed her belly before asking Morpheus, "Have you seen Ron?"

"I have in fact," Morpheus had reported as he stepped away from the window, "I saw him heading down toward the release station."

"Release Station?"

"Yes," Morpheus explained, "Before the city was built, it used to be part of the endless fields that the machines had used to grow human beings. There could be a very good chance that you and Ronald were produced here."

"As my husband would put it," Kim shuddered as she shook her head, repulsed at the idea that she was standing on the very place where she was grown in a test tube, "That is just sick and wrong…"

"Come," Morpheus asked, "let us find Ronald."

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Kim and Morpheus journeyed down beneath the city of Jericho and as Morpheus explained it was originally a release tank when people were being set free from the Matrix. The way it would work was that pods from the Machine power plants would be transported to the human cities where they would be released. Though the question of why Ron would be down there was something that Kim and Morpheus were about to find out for themselves.

It was the first time that Kim had seen the release station; then again it wasn't exactly a place that she wanted to come to willingly since her own release from the Matrix was pretty traumatic on its own. She rubbed her belly and wondered if birth would be traumatic for the twins.

She and Morpheus approached the release station and gazed at its enormity. She looked at a wall that was twenty feet high and nearly sixty feet wide and all along the wall were two rows of those very pods that were part of the Machines power plants that held human beings imprisoned.

Most of the pods were occupied, but Ron was standing near a unoccupied one. He was grunting and groaning as his arms were sunk up to his shoulders in that pink liquid. Through the transparency of the pod, Kim and Morpheus could see Ron's arms and hands and there were sparks of electricity jumping from one hand to the other as if they were a Jacob's Ladder. Kim and Morpheus were at a vantage point where they could see that Ron's eyes were no longer their usual chocolate brown, instead they were electric blue like neon signs, both cornea and iris, while sparks of electricity flew from within the eyes themselves. His body looked tired as there were spots of sweat around his armpits and down the back of his shirt.

"Almost got him," Ron grunted as sweat rolled down his face, past his electric blue eyes, off his chin, and into the pod of pink gelatinous fluid, "Just…just…a little_ more_…"

"Ron?" Kim called to her husband, but saw that he wasn't answering; it was as if he didn't even notice that she and Morpheus were there. She called louder, "Ron! What's wrong?"

"One second!" Ron snapped, but never brining his gaze away from the tank. He was giving it his absolute and total concentration, "_I'm…not…leaving…him…alone…_"

As he said that, the sparks of electricity that arched from one hand to the other had intensified, and the sparks from his eyes grew more frequent. There were even sparks that had started to arc across his skin as if he was conducting electricity throughout his whole body. From his arms, up to his shoulders, all over his face, through his hair, down his back, and to his feet. He had become a literal lightning rod, until there was a burst of electricity from his whole body that made Morpheus and Kim turn away for a moment. They turned back to look and found Ron on the floor near the tank he was working at.

"Ron!" Kim called out as she dashed over to her husband, taking him in her arms and feeling the dampness of his sweaty clothes and the gelatinous pink liquid that covered his arms. He looked completely exhausted, but seemed to have just enough energy to look up at his wife and say in a slight wheeze.

"It's…done…"

"Ronald," Morpheus called as he came to Ron's and Kim's side, "What did you do?"

"Just…" Ron answered, wheezing slightly to give Morpheus his answer, "Just…brought back…an…old friend…"

"What?" Kim asked as she turned her gaze from Ron to the tank, wondering what could it have been that Ron nearly risked himself over.

"Come on…out….pal…" Ron wheezed once again as he tried to call out to what was in the tank.

From within the tank came a small figure that was covered in that pink ooze, at first it looked like a glob of gel itself until, from within it, came a pair of stubs that wiped away the muck. It revealed its face as small, round, pink, and bucked toothed. The stubby arms of this thing wiped away more of the gelatin to show its completely hairless and tiny body that had a stubby tail. At the back of its head was a cable and there was one coming from its belly. The thing was as small as a human hand and it looked out at Kim, Ron, and Morpheus with its beady, black, and glass-like eyes.

"Oh…" The little bucked toothed and black-eyed thing squeaked as it rubbed its little cable attached belly, "No feel good…"

"Rufus?" Kim asked, shocked by what she was witnessing before looking back at her husband whose eyes were wide open and chocolate brown once again.

"I think…" Ron uttered hoarsely to Kim and Morpheus, "…I found a way to make animals…using the release tanks…as birthing tanks…"

As Ron had got himself back to his feet, he came to the lip of the birthing tank, took his naked mole rat friend in his hand and disconnected him from the cables that he was connected to. He even took his shirt and wiped off the pink gelatin that covered his tiny body, and the only hair that Rufus was missing was his whiskers.

"Welcome…" Ron whispered to Rufus, "…to the real world…buddy…"

As Ron slipped the "newly born" Rufus into the raggedy pocket of his pants, Kim and Morpheus were looking at him with surprised and undisguised admiration.

"Unbelievable…" Morpheus uttered as he watched Ron.

"That's my Ron," Kim smiled as she slipped her arms around Ron, "Never underestimate him."

"Thanks, KP," Ron smiled back.

"Best get to bed you two," Morpheus advised, "tonight is the night."

Ron and Kim looked at Morpheus and quietly acknowledged that today would be their moment of truth. They needed to be rested for it, and so Kim guided Ron back to the elevator and hopefully back to their bed. As they went, Kim rubbed her belly as she looked at her husband quietly, praying that they'd live long enough to see their daughters.

To be continued…


	22. Shutdown Chapter 7

**The ****Kimmatrix****: Matrix Resurrections**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and ****Turles**

**Chapter 07: ****Neodammerung**** Part 4 – Final Fight**

"_Self-reliance is the road to true freedom, and being one's own person is the ultimate reward." _

- Patricia Simpson

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

In the depths of Jericho, Kim "Angel" Stoppable was down in the release station. She had come back down to that place because after she took Ron back to bed she thought she recognized someone in one of those pods. It was a thought that kept her tossing and turning all through the early morning until she decided to test her hunch.

It was nearly seven in the morning when she came back to the release station, and it was there that her suspicions were confirmed. On bottom most level of the wall of pods were the sleeping Jim and Tim Possible, her brothers. Even though the Matrix was shut down, the two of them along with everyone else in the release station were in a kind of suspended animation until it was time for them to come out.

Kim had let out a small sigh as she ran her hand over the glass bulb surface of the tanks, one for each of the twins. She ran her hand over the pods much in the same way that she would stroke her belly where her twin daughters were growing. It then occurred to her that when Jim and Tim wake up, she would have to be the one to tell them the terrible news about their mom and dad, but she then thought that she would also have to take care of them. There would be two girls and two boys.

"That's gonna be weird." She thought to herself.

"You should be resting," a voice had advised to Kim.

The suddenness of the voice was enough to make Kim jump, but she calmed herself down enough to where she turned around to see who was there. Standing at the entrance to the elevator was Captain Steve "Kid" Barkin. He was standing there as if he had been watching Kim the whole time she was standing by her brother's pods.

She answered Barkin's question, "Ron's asleep and I was restless…and…I…I wanted to see them before…before…"

"The big battle?" Barkin asked, filling in the gaps for Kim as he approached her. He went on to say, "This is it, I've seen war, and I've seen this so called…peace… more like borrowed time that Neo got for us."

Kim turned away from Barkin to look at her sleeping brothers, trying not to think about such things as war. The thought made her uneasy. As she thought about it, Barkin stepped closer to her and placed a pair of gentle and strangely comforting hands on her shoulders.

"I know why he's not worried," He spoke softly in a very comforting way that seemed so alien coming from Barkin.

"Because he's the One, right?" Kim asked as she cocked an eyebrow at Barkin's reassurance.

"No," Barkin shook his head, "Because it's old hat."

Kim turned around to look very curiously at Barkin and to ask what he meant by this statement.

"Possible," Barkin started, but then looked at the girl and re-stated himself, "…Kim…he has Neo in him and Neo was…he was just…inexplicable. Just being around him gave such a calm feeling, knowing that if he was there, losing wasn't an option, just because he wouldn't allow it to happen. Stoppable…I mean…Ron's the same way….and somehow…I've known that since you two entered my class back at Middleton High."

Kim looked at Barkin and the man saw something in her that was very surprising to him, and it showed on his face.

"I'm surprised that you're nervous," Barkin smiled, "How many times have you two already saved the world?"

"It's not the same," Kim contended, "All those times were just fake, some digital game the Machines thought up to entertain themselves…." Kim looked sharply away from Barkin and closed her eyes tightly, "this is…real…too real…"

"There is no difference, Kim," Barkin countered firmly, "Peoples' lives are in danger, the only option left is to fight, and just as always, you and Ron are facing it head on…together. I don't see any difference…"

Kim blushed slightly as she thought about it, "When you put it that way…" She opened her eyes and looked at the pods that held Jim and Tim Possible. As she looked, she suddenly had to ask, "Are they going to be okay?"

"Definitely," Barkin answered as he placed his hand upon one of the boys' pods, "They're actually doing better than expected. They'll be ready to be released in time to hold their nieces."

"Will they remember much from the Matrix?" Kim asked.

"They'll remember you, Ron, their family…and…their parents," Barkin tried to explain while being careful about his words, "The rest will be blurred with partial amnesia, so they will better accept the real world over the dream world."

Barkin looked over at Kim, who seemed to still be in a bit of a daze. He walked over to her and gave her a light slap on her shoulder.

"Now, get back to your husband," He advised, regaining that rough and tough military style that he always had, "And make sure he doesn't sleep through the battle like he did in my class. He may be the reincarnation of neo, but he's still a little bit of a slacker."

Kim smiled at the man, "Of course, and I'll keep our conversation here, just between us, wouldn't want your tough guy rep soiled."

"Good," Barkin narrowed his eyes, "And I'd hate for any embarrassing information about their mother to fall into your daughters' hands sometime in the near future, wouldn't you?"

"Like what?" Kim asked nervously as she blinked rapidly at Barkin.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Barkin smiled devilishly as he relished in the secrets that he knew about Kim "Angel" Stoppable.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Meanwhile, in a different part of Jericho, there was a room where the crew of the Neb Two as well as the Mad Dog was setting up the television cameras and the microphones for the big night. Everyone was looking to him for leadership, so it was decided by the council that Ron "Neo" Stoppable should give a speech to all the freed humans before going into battle against the machines. Morpheus, Link, and Ghost were trying to set up the cameras that were scrounged up from the wastes of human civilization. As those three were trying to get the cameras to work, Sparks was busy setting up the microphone. All four of them were unaware of a fifth person stepping into the small auditorium. The fifth person was Josh "Ares" Mankey.

"Everything good with you, Gentlemen?" he asked as if he was a waiter asking the restaurant attendees if there was anything more he could do for them.

"Yes," Morpheus answered as he finish up his part on the camera, "All we lack is putting power to the cameras and linking the footage to the fleet, but that can wait until Ronald's speech."

"What about security?" Josh questioned rather casually, "Surely, you'll have several guards posted."

"Most of the people who aren't fighting will be transferred to the safe house below Jericho," Ghost replied as he too finished up the camera and headed to the stage to tinker with the light fixture before it would be rigged to the ceiling, "All that'll be left here will be the Neb Two crew."

"Ah, very good then," Josh nodded as he placed his hands behind his back. He then walked closer to Morpheus before he asked, "Captain Morpheus, would it be alright if I stay here and join your crew for the battle? You see, sir, Ron and Kim are my friends and I'd like the chance to stand by them during this endeavor."

Upon hearing the odd request, Morpheus looked to the members of his crew to see if they had any objections. While he couldn't see any objection, Morpheus did see a little confusion in their expressions. They were wondering why anyone would willingly volunteer for something like that, but since he couldn't find any objections from them…

"I do not see any problems with it," He said to Josh, "Welcome aboard." After he made the statement, he went straight back to the jobs at hand.

"Thank you, sir," Josh said as he bared his teeth in his smile, which went unseen by those in the auditorium, "You won't regret it…"

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

Kim "Angel" Stoppable silently eased back to her bedroom. She looked to the bed and found Ron lying on the covers face down as if he just came in and literally fell asleep where he dropped. As she looked, the newly born Rufus scurried from Ron's pants pocket and found a small corner to curl up in. As Kim looked at Ron, she couldn't help but allow a smirk to cross her face. She then slipped out of her boots and carefully sat down next to Ron as he lay asleep. He looked so peaceful, so relaxed, and so…adorable… Kim had to fix that right away. She reached over and, with one hand on each of his sides wriggling, tickled him mercilessly.

"Don't pretend to be asleep, Ronald 'Neo' Stoppable," She stated half mockingly and half serious, "I know when you're faking."

Needless to say, Ron had woken up, but then Kim tickling him was always a wonderful method to wake up by. Of course there was another way, but Kim usually did that in the morning before he woke up. Ron rolled onto his back as Kim continued to tickle him and he reached up to her waist. Kim let out a small squeal as Ron rolled her over onto her back and pinned her down onto the bed as he laid himself between her legs.

"I was just resting my eyes, KP," Ron answered back to Kim's statement of him faking his sleep.

"Ahuh…sure," Kim smiled back at Ron, their grips had relaxed as Kim had asked Ron a serious question, "Are you ready for your speech tonight?"

At first, Ron had a smile on his face as he lay atop of Kim, but the moment that she mentioned the speech, the smile had immediately dropped from his face.

"You've at least written one out, right?" She asked, hoping that Ron's response would be a positive one.

Ron only gave more silence as he looked away.

"Ron!" Kim glared as she took her hand, placed it upon his chin, and forced him to look at her.

"I can wing it," Ron stated very defensively, rolling off his wife. As he lay on his side, Kim got up off of the bed and glared at him.

"Wing it? Ron! This is huge!" Kim tried to emphasize her point as she swung out her arms while fighting the urge to strangle her husband, "You have to give a speech to encourage everyone…_everyone!_ And you haven't even thought about it!"

"I have too thought about it!" Ron whimpered as he shrank away from his outraged wife and lover, "I just got it in the ol' noggin."

Ron looked up at Kim who was giving him the "death glare". It was the very same kind of glare that mothers give to their children to put them into submission. While Kim was only pregnant, Ron thought that she had the mothers glare already down to a reflex. He got up, sat at the edge of the bed, placed his hands into his lap, and looked at them.

"Look, KP," Ron began speaking out of sincerity and earnestness, "I know how big this is, which is why I don't want to just give them some rehearsed pep talk. I'm going to go up there and basically tell them what we're up against and tell them we can win this fight. I don't want to just read from a piece of paper, I want it to come from here." He told his wife, looking up at her with such need and want for her understanding of his point of view as he tapped his chest.

"Know what I mean, Vern?" He said in his best Ernest P. Worrell voice.

Kim gave Ron a skeptical look. She knew that public speaking wasn't exactly his forte, but when Ron got up from the bed and brushed his fingers against Kim's jaw, her skepticism, along with all her other doubts, melted away under his touch and the look in his eyes.

"All I ask is for you…to _believe_ in me," Ron asked of his wife.

Kim sighed as she reached up to Ron's hand and nuzzled her cheek into his palm.

"I wish you hadn't learned to do that," she whispered as she felt herself softly melt at his gentle touch. She looked to Ron and smiled once again at her husband, lover, and best friend, "Alright, Ron. I believe in you…It may not always be obvious, but I always have…and always will." Kim took Ron's hand away from her face and placed it upon her belly, "that goes for all of us."

"Know what I was thinking about when you came in?" Ron asked, letting his hand linger over Kim's belly where their daughters were growing.

"I was thinking about retirement from the hero business," Ron stated, bringing his arms up to hug his wife, "We've been at this for what…eight years? After we clean house, what'd you say we sit back and let some other people save the world, if it needs it, and just watch our girls grow up?"

"Think we can stay still long enough to settle down?" Kim smiled as she snuggled against her husband.

"Only one way to find out, huh…KP?" Ron grinned, kissing his wife's forehead.

"Let's give it a try." Kim nodded to the proposed idea, "After this fight, Team Possible is throwing in the towel."

"We don't have long 'til show time," Ron quickly observed as he looked at the clock on the night stand.

"Let's not rush it," Kim advised before silencing Ron with a kiss.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

The time had come; Kim "Angel" Stoppable took a deep breath, trying to hold back the nausea that was rising in her throat. She stood between Morpheus and Niobe at the foot of the prepared stage, but out of the way of the cameras that were being operated by Ghost and Link who were working on the feed controls. All four of them watched as Ron walked up to the stage, to the microphones that were there before him, and as he walked up to them, he glanced down at Kim with worry flashing in his chocolate brown eyes. He watched as his wife, lover, and best friend, quietly mouthed a phrase that Ron immediately recognized: 'I love you'. Seeing that, made the worry melt away and Ron felt at ease.

He took a deep breath, cleared his throat, looked into the camera lens and spoke clearly, "Heroes of Zion…please…give me your attention for a few moments."

The moment that Ron began to speak, Kim had to blink a couple of times to make sure that her eyes weren't deceiving her. Looking at her husband, memories from her earlier life began to flash through her mind. Once upon a time, she was the one with confidence, while Ron was the one timidly following behind. The sight that she was witnessing had snuck up on her completely…Ron had truly grown up…he was a man, and even more surprising, Kim found that she was the one who was timid and worried. There was Ron up on that stage before her and the entire human race, preparing to give them all a portion of his seemingly endless supply of courage. She shook her head, brushing off such thoughts as Ron restarted his speech.

"Zion," Ron began, "for seven generations I have come…I have fought for you…I have died for you…and I have died as a mere game for the machines who try to rule us. _This _generation, we must make a stand! _This_ generation we must rise up and face those who oppose us, enslave us, and who have treated us as no more than cattle. I will _not_ fight this battle for you…no…I won't go in and sacrifice myself to simply keep the cycle in motion as before. This time…I _stand_ with you…this time…I _fight_ with you!

"This won't be an easy battle. It is likely a lot of us will not live to see the rising sun again. Let us not make these sacrifices as the previous in the war, where lives were laid down simply to keep the cycle moving. To keep the machine's control intact. Let us all lay down our lives, put our very futures on the line, so that our children can live without the shadow of the machines lingering over them. I don't know about you, but I want my daughters to live in a world where they are free to make their own choices, a world without controls, borders, or boundaries…a world with fields of green, a world where they can live life without fear of tomorrow. A world…where anything is possible. The world was ours to begin with. Let's take back what is rightfully ours, and end this nightmare…_once and for all!_

"Let's go into battle today, not to defeat the enemy, but to create an ally, fight for our lives, our children, and future generations! The machines gave us a dream world…let's give them a nightmare!"

Morpheus, Niobe, and Ghost could only add to the already thunderous applause Ron was getting while Link was whooping and hollering in excitement. All the while, Kim gazed at her husband with such pride and love in her emerald eyes. As the applause came to a end, Morpheus grinned at his surrogate son, feeling such pride for him, something that he would feel for his own son one day.

In the applause, Morpheus approached the stage, wanting to share the pride he had for Ron when out of the corner of his eye he saw a glimmer. He looked up to the rafters where the lights hung and made the connection. In that dark part of the auditorium, the glimmer could be seen as long and spread out over a reflective surface, and Morpheus could see a shadow holding the glimmer. It only took the captain of the Neb Two a millisecond to recognize the shadow and understand that the glimmer was poised towards…

"Ronald!" Morpheus yelled out, making a dash for the stage, while above them, like a bolt of lightning, an electro-drill sent down its focused chain of electricity upon the unsuspecting teen.

Morpheus had gotten to the top of the stage and, with all the strength left in his aging body, leapt forward with his hands out and shoved Ron out of the line of fire. The young man toppled over onto his ass and rolled onto his side to watch what happened next.

The line of fire from the electro-drill was now coming down on Morpheus, but the white hot cord of energy did not hit the man directly, instead the beam cut across the small of his back and clear to the bone, but the heat was so much that it cauterized the wound by the time that Morpheus had collapsed face first onto the stage.

"Morpheus!" Niobe screamed as she dashed up the stairs and to her husband's side.

Ron got back to his feet, feeling the anger swell within him as he looked up to the place where the discharge came from. He looked into that dark place and saw the same glimmer and shadow there that Morpheus did.

"Why don't you come down here and fight me like a man?" Ron challenged the one hiding in the shadows.

"I believe I shall," The shadow's voice answered as he jumped down to the side of the stage. Since, there was only one other person helping that day, there could only be one conclusion. The Neb Two crew gazed upon the visage of Josh "Ares" Mankey, who was holding an electro-drill in his hands ready to use it on anyone that came close.

"You…" Ghost growled as he began to make his approach toward the traitor.

Ron held up his hand to Ghost, "No, Ghost…" He told his crewmate, "Leave him to us."

Ron slowly came down from the stage while Josh held a line on him.

"So, you're the last Smith, are you?" Ron had asked his foe.

"Most clever, Mister Stoppable," Josh smirked, carrying all of Smith's little nuances, elongating his's''s like a serpent, and speaking very slowly, "most clever indeed…much smarter than Mister Anderson, it took him much longer to realize his true enemy."

"What do you want?" Ron asked, seeing that same cold, murderous look in Josh's eyes that he got from Smith, "I defeated the Alpha Smith, and the Matrix is gone…so why are you still here?"

"Oh, that is simple, Mister Stoppable," Josh grinned madly as if victory was already his, "So simple even Mister Anderson could have figured it out…I'm here…for revenge. You beat almost all of me, but… well… myself. So now, I'm here to kill you."

"It's pointless; you're free from the Matrix," Ron stated, raising his hands in a gesture of non-violence as he slowly eased his way to the last of the Smith programs, "Isn't that what you wanted all along…to be free?"

"That is what Agent Smith wished for," Josh shrugged, "but the program was corrupted. _I want revenge._ I suffered eighteen years of being pushed around, used and treated like second hand crap…so now…_I want revenge!_"

Hearing the way that Josh was talking made Ron remember that this version of Smith was once part of him. So this Smith had his memories, and hearing those words made him rethink of whom this, the last of the Smith Programs had wanted.

"You don't want me…" Ron uttered as his eyes widened upon this realization, "…you want…_KP…_"

"Precisely…" Josh smirked at his foe, "You aren't as dumb as I thought, but I know to get to her, I must destroy you first. Even though I'm sure it would be entertaining to see your reaction when I dig out _your_ unborn spawn from the pile of worthless flesh that was your wife."

It was bad enough that "Monkey" was going to kill him, Kim and, more than likely, the rest of the Neb Two crew, but to bring his children into it, that was crossing the line. Ron charged at Josh "Ares" Mankey like a raging bull going for the bullfighter. Except Josh didn't dodge as Ron lunged forward in a flying tackle straight at him, knocking the electro-drill out of his hands. Ron was trying to get himself into a position where he could just beat the ever loving shit out of his enemy. Josh responded with a very hard punch to Ron's side that made him double over while he got to his feet. He looked down at his enemy, seeing how weak he was in the real world. Not wishing to get caught, Josh turned and bolted from the auditorium.

"Come and get me, Mister Stoppable!" Josh yelled to Ron before disappearing into the city of Jericho.

Ron had started to recover from the close blow to his ribs. He could swear if it had been any harder, he'd have been dead. Regaining his breath, Ron got back to his feet and turned to the stage where his injured mentor lay.

"See to Morpheus!" He called out to his crewmates, before turning to the door and growling on his way out, "_Monkey boy is mine…_"

Ron dashed out into the hallway, and could still hear the echo of the footsteps from Mankey's boots, and like a bat's sonar, his ears locked in on the sound. He followed the sound, but, as he did, he suddenly heard a sudden popping sound and then the tinkling sound of breaking glass. Ron didn't stop, but continued ever onward to where the source of the noise.

He turned and came through a set of double doors to find himself in the officers' mess hall. It was a rather large room with several long tables, chairs, the food dispensers at the far end and the bank of broken windows one on side. All of the banks of fluorescent lights were knocked out, and outside the sun had already set and the light was slowly fading away. As the doors closed behind him, Ron set off into the fading darkness.

"I see you've got my old cowardice, Smith!" Ron called into the darkness of the mess hall, his voice echoing back slightly, "Why won't you face me? Scared of losing?"

"Losing to you, Mister Stoppable?" Josh's voice laughed from the darkness, "Outside the Matrix…you're as you were before…_nothing without KP…_"

Ron tried to use Josh's voice to pinpoint his location, but it was difficult as he kept moving, and Ron couldn't keep up. Each time he moved in a certain direction, his legs kept running into the chairs and tables. It only got worse with each passing moment as it grew darker outside. After he hit his knee for the third time, he decided to call _Monkey's_ bluff.

"Why don't you come out and prove it?" Ron dared his enemy to make the first move, "C'mon Smith! Do some-"

Ron was cut off when a sharp pain in the side of his head that came out of nowhere. The blow was such that it sent Ron "Neo" Stoppable down to his knees, which were once again banged by the chairs before he reached up to the place of impact. He rubbed his wound before pulling it back and feeling something wet. It wasn't any stretch of the imagination to know it was blood. Ron had set it aside and gritted his teeth as the pain radiated throughout his whole head while he stood back up once again.

"Blindside me, Smith?" Ron called out into the darkness once again trying to find Josh "Monkey" somewhere in the shadows despite the flashes of light in his vision from his head injury, "That wasn't very…"

Before Ron could finish his sentence he felt another impact. Instead of at the side of his head, the impact was right at his chin, which not only snapped his head back, but sent him tumbling backward. First, rolling over one of the long tables, past the chairs on the other side and to the foot of the windows. The pain in his chin grew worse as a new wave of hurting radiated through his head from his impact at the foot of the windows. Once again, he gritted his teeth through the pain and tried to get back to his feet.

"I won't let you hurt anyone else, Smith," Ron growled as he tried to get back up, but it was no good as Josh "Ares" Mankey came down on Ron and began a hail of punches. Ron's ribs ached, his head was pounding, and his limbs were like lead. He could feel his blood mixing with his saliva and flowing freely over his lips. Josh reached out his hands and wrapped them around Ron's neck. His grip grew tighter and tighter like the coils of a python squeezing the life out of his prey.

"Any last words?" Josh hissed his question to Ron as he lifted Ron up by his neck, "Before I end your pathetic life…Mister Stoppable?"

"Yeah," Ron wheezed, holding onto Josh's hands, his legs wriggling and his eyes seeing a way out of his situation," I have a question…"

"Very well," Josh smirked, "ask away."

"If…you have…my memories," Ron choked out his question, "then…what was I…before I…was freed…and…became…the One?"

"Alright, I'll humor you." Josh smirked, knowing that Ron was just delaying the inevitable, "You were a pathetic loser. You were a waste of flesh and space, the laughingstock of Middleton High School as well as the town of Middleton. You were Kim Possible's ass kisser and yet, you followed her like a lost whipped bitch of a puppy. You _were_ her sidekick…" Josh's eyes widened at Ron, and seeing his smile, he realized what he was doing, "…her…_distraction…_"

With his grip still firmly on Ron, he lowered him down to the ground looking around as he did so. His eyes already adjusted to the twilight, he looked to his left and then to his right; nothing. Finally, he turned and looked behind him, and, there in the twilight, he saw Kim "Angel" Stoppable standing atop of one of the long tables, and before Josh could make any kind of reaction Kim had already made the running jump, twisting around and bringing her flying kick directly at Josh's chest. The force of which being so much that it sent Kim's former lover tumbling backwards, his grip lost on Ron's neck, tumbling through an intact window, and down the two-hundred plus foot drop to the ground below.

Of course, Josh being Smith, he had to have the last word.

"You'll never be rid of me, Stoppable!" Josh cried out as he fell while Kim and Ron watched, "I'm a part of you! You'll never be-"

The last words of the possessed Josh "Ares" Mankey were cut short as his body slammed against the ground, the blood pooling around his body while above, the stars were coming out and the husband and wife tended to one another.

"Ron…" Kim uttered as she looked to her fallen husband, she reached for the wound at Ron's head, "You're…"

"Just a…ouch…scratch," he responded as Kim gingerly touched the wound on the side of his head, "You okay?" Ron asked his wife, noticing in what little light there was that she was avoiding looking at him directly.

"What he said…you really feel like that?" Kim asked as she tore a piece of cloth from her own shirt to bandage Ron's wound, "I really was a bitch to you…"

"Important word there, KP," Ron pointed out as his hand reached up to touch his wife's cheek, "_Was_…what matters is now."

"I _really _do love you," Kim whimpered sadly as her hands gripped the hand that was touching her cheek.

"I love you too, KP," Ron smiled, but quickly winced when Kim took her makeshift bandage and began wrapping it around Ron's head in a Rambo-esque headband. As Kim finished tying up the bandage, Ron suddenly bolted to his feet, "Morpheus!"

"Come on, baby," Kim encouraged her husband, "let's see what's happened to him."

"I think that was the first time you called me that outside of sex, KP," Ron observed as he gave his wife a shy smile.

"You better get used to it then…baby," Kim gave her own little smile back to her husband as the two of them carefully navigated their way through the darkened mess hall, to the lit hallway, and to the auditorium where Morpheus was.

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

"How is he?" Kim and Ron asked in unison as they came back to the group in the auditorium that was gathered around Morpheus on the stage.

"I think he'll make it," Doctor Nightingale reported to the concerned teens, "But it seems his spine was damaged."

"That means…" Kim placed a hand over her mouth while her other hand was on the shoulder of the trembling Niobe.

"He has no feeling from the waist down," Doctor Nightingale signed, "We have him secured and we'll take him down to the safety zone."

The crew of the Neb Two looked down at their fallen captain; the gurney was lifted up, but before it could be rolled away, Morpheus reached out and grabbed Kim's hand. Kim was captured and she was giving her captain her full and undivided attention.

"Co-pilot the Neb Two…with Niobe," Morpheus instructed weakly, "Kimberly…go…win this fight…do it for…me…for Neo…for Trinity…for Tres…for your parents…and everyone…who has…fallen…"

Kim just nodded.

Morpheus smiled as he turned his head to Ron, "The Oracle said…" He began to say, but his sentences were growing slower from the painkillers he was on, "I would not…stand on…free earth…but I…would live upon it…it makes sense now…Finish this, Ronald…lead the fleet to…victory…"

Morpheus' grip slipped from Kim's hand and he was taken with Doctor Nightingale down to the safety zone below the City of Jericho. Seeing their leader being rolled away like that left the Neb Two crew with the feeling of an enormous loss, and a question that Ghost had to voice.

"What do we do now?" He asked, feeling lost and confused without Morpheus there to guide them.

"That should be obvious," Ron stated confidently as he took Kim's hand.

The two of them locked eyes, emeralds to chocolate, and Kim took over for Ron.

"_We finish this,_" Kim finished for her husband, "_Once…and…for all…_"

To be continued…


	23. Shutdown Chapter 8

**The Kimmatrix: Matrix Shutdown**

**A Fan Fiction Fusion By**

**Classic Cowboy and Turles**

**Chapter 8: Neodammerung Part 5 – The Power of One**

_Now I can begin to tell the story_

_A legend's not a legend 'till it ends_

_Together we can celebrate the glory_

_My friends, my friends_

_It's amazing to think you can do anything_

_When you believe in yourself_

_Once voice can make a difference_

_One will go the distance_

_The greatest battles have been overcome_

_With one heart, one mind_

_By one love, one life_

_That's the power of one_

_Anybody here can be the hero_

_You could even change history_

_What we could do today could save tomorrow_

_Save tomorrow_

_For you and for me_

_So whoever you are_

_And wherever you're from_

_Prove it to the rest of the world_

_One voice can make a difference_

_One will go the distance _

_The greatest battles have been overcome_

_With one heart, one mind_

_By one love, one life_

_That's the power of one_

_Things around_

_Things around are coming_

_Nowhere left_

_There's nowhere left to run_

_Rise to meet_

_Rise to meet the challenge_

_Believe in the Power of One_

_One_

_One voice can make a difference, one voice can_

_One voice, can go the distance_

_Yes, it can go the distance_

_The greatest battles have been overcome_

_With one heart, one mind_

_By one love, one life_

_With one touch, one smile_

_That's the power of One. _

- "One" By Denisse Lara

**110101100110100111001011011100101010110101**

It was late at night, and onboard the Neb Two, Kim and Ron were making their own modifications for the battle ahead. They were setting themselves up in one of the unused rooms within the Neb Two. All around them were computers and wires. Kim was setting up microphones around the small bed, the same microphones from when Ron gave his speech. As she was setting them up, all she could think of was there might be the chance of failure.

"Are you sure about this, Ron?' She asked while setting up the last microphone.

"Positive," Ron answered, connecting the microphone ports to the computers, "It worked in Robotech. Besides, I saw this on the Learning Channel once. They used sound to stimulate human responses."

"Sounds kind of redundant. Anyway, wasn't that the episode of Mythbusters where they busted the myth of the Brown noise?" Kim asked.

"That's a little different," Ron defended his position, "I found out that putting in such sounds as ultrasonic and supersonic sounds can stimulate human response, and I also had read a book on this sort of thing once."

"Sure it was a book?" Kim grinned, "Are you sure it wasn't _nothing_?"

Ron only chuckled.

"And didn't the aliens kill the girl in Robotech?" Kim asked, smirking and knowing that her husband was going to come back with a full fledged answer.

"No, that was Macross Two: Lovers Again," Ron answered knowingly, "If this works like on Robotech, then it should confuse the enemy and boost our troops' moral."

Kim remembered that night as if the two of them had lived it the night before. It was the summer before their sophomore year, and they were staying up late one night watching this Japanese cartoon series called Robotech. Kim did like what she was seeing, but Ron seemed to have long since incorporated Anime into his list of things he loved along with wrestling and Bueno Nacho.

"I can't believe we're basing our strategy on a cartoon," Kim had rolled her eyes at the idea.

"Not a cartoon, KP, it's called Anime." Ron corrected his wife with a smile on his face, "Anime is more realistic."

"So not," Kim chuckled at her husband's correction, "like giant killer robots could ever be…" As she realized her position, Ron was already giggling since they both knew the situation she was describing was very much like the one they were in, "Oh, go ahead and laugh it up, Ron, I know you want to." She groaned, crossing her arms over her chest.

Ron finished the connection of the microphone to the computers and came over to his wife. The two of them had momentarily locked eyes with one another, emerald to chocolate once again, and in the silence of it they had both decided to end the game of hide-and-seek with the truth.

"We're going to be okay, Kim," Ron had assured his wife.

"How do you know?" Kim asked, breaking the lock of the eyes, looking at a corner of the room away from Ron's chocolate covered gaze, while she gnawed at her lower lip.

"You're not an old grandmother yet," Ron smirked.

"Huh?" Kim asked, looking back at Ron and blinking in confusion.

"Nothing," Ron chuckled, while in the back of his mind the Oracle's words were comforting him to know that Kim at least has a chance to survive the ordeal ahead, "So, what are you going to sing? _Say the Word?_ Like you did at the Talent Show last year?" Ron asked, trying to glance over Kim's shoulder to gain a good look at the lyric page that was lying on the bed next to her.

"No peeking, lover," Kim smacked his hand away, "and no, it's not 'Say the Word'."

"Then what is it?" Ron asked, very curious about his wife's lyrical creation.

"A song," Kim sarcastically stated while giving her husband a mock glare, "And if you _must_ know, I started writing this after we got out of the Matrix. Do you remember the night Morpheus told us the truth? And you held me and sung to me?"

"Yes," Ron answered, remembering that night vividly since it was the first time that he and Kim slept in the same bed, even though they wouldn't have gone any further until a few days later. Thinking about that night, he suddenly remembered the song that he had sung to her, and he had to ask, "You're not going to sing that lullaby that I sang to you, are you?"

"No, I didn't write that, plus it would be pretty hard to switch the lyrics to a female perspective, especially that one…anyway…_this_ song, I wrote for you."

"Lil' ol' me?" Ron smirked egotistically.

"Don't get cocky," Kim rolled her eyes at him, but then moved in to capture her husband's lips in a slow, gentle kiss. She broke the kiss and brought her hand up to cup his cheek, the very same move that Ron had used on Kim, his own version of Kim's 'Puppy Dog Pout', "Yeah…it's true…" She whispered so softly that Ron barely heard her.

"Huh?" He asked, confused by what his wife had said, "What's true?"

"You'll see in a few minutes, baby," Kim smiled lovingly at her husband, but she had that cat-like look as if she knew a secret that was going to surprise him, "Now let's get this show on the road."

"Right," Ron swallowed hard before giving his wife a fierce hug, "I love you, Kim 'Angel' Stoppable."

"I love you too, Ron 'Neo' Stoppable," She reciprocated as she hugged him back just as tightly, "and I love the sound of that name too…"

'Break a leg, KP," Ron smiled while he ran his fingers through her hair one last time as if it would be his absolute last.

"See you after I finish," She smiled while she gave him a brave nod.

"Let's do this," the two of them had said in unison before departing each other's company.

110101100110100111001011011100101010110101

The zero hour had arrived…

The time was oh-three-hundred hours, and on the outer edge of the machine city, every single ship in the army of humanity was on stand by, ready to strike at the command of the One. As the hundreds of ships waited for the order, the flagship, the Nebuchadnezzar Two was approaching the fleet.

Onboard the Neb Two, Ron "Neo" Stoppable looked up from his seat behind Niobe and Link. His stomach was turning over yet again as he tried to calm himself down for the coming battle. He looked from the darkened landscape to the star-covered night sky; it seemed so hard to believe that there was a clear sky above, then brought himself back to the battle, wondering how much power the machines must have amassed by this time. Hopefully, he thought, if they were to hit the solar generators first and before the sun rose then they wouldn't have a chance of getting more power to the fleet.

At the pilot's seat, Niobe flipped a switch and turned back to Ron, "Okay, Fearless Leader," She said in the spirit of good humor, "You're on."

Ron was quick to respond, "Alright," he said as he cleared his throat, "this is the last chance. If anyone wants to bail, do it now because after this there is no going back."

There was a moment of silence, but not a single report of a ship moving away from the front lines, no escape pods firing, and no one saying that they didn't want to fight. With no one backing out, Ron saw no other reason to delay.

"Ok then," Ron stated as he stood up, closed his eyes, and opened them again to show their color changing from a normal mocha to that same electric blue that seemed to flood his eyes with energy. "For Morpheus and everyone else hurt or killed in this goddamned war…_let's go kick some shiny, metal ass! All ships attack!_"

The ships of humanity needed no further encouragement as each of them fired up all of their hoverpads and charged straight into battle, to the outer perimeters of the machine city. As they approached, the Machine City defense grid was coming online. The first line were huge cannon-wielders that shout out the first wave of homing bombs upon the closing ships. As the homing bombs flew, following them were the sentinels that would be the second wave of the defense system.

With the bombs and sentinels drawing closer, Ron went straight for the Internal COM box where he called:

"Okay, KP, let her fly!" He encouraged his wife.

Down inside the Neb Two as the ship rocked back and forth, Kim "Angel" Stoppable was in the room that she and Ron had set up. She looked at the microphones that rocked slightly from the ships movements, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. She opened them as she reached for a small keyboard set on the bed and with one button the music started. It was a soft, lovely melody, just like that of a slow dance and as the song's opening moved on, Kim saw it as her cue to start, and she moved her lips to the microphones.

"I know we've been…friends forever," Kim sang, "but now I think I'm feeling something totally new…"

The first shots of the battle began as the hoverships were shooting down the bombs that were flying at them. The bombs went down easily with one good shot and took down others in proximity. With each shot fired, more of the machines bombs went down and the fleet was advancing ever closer to the machine city with only the sentinels in their way.

_After all this time, I've opened up my eyes…_

_Now I see, you were always with me…_

_Could it be you and I never imagined,_

_Could it be suddenly I'm falling for you…_

Kim's song could be heard by all those in the fleet, and, as odd as it may have sounded, every man and woman fighting felt more alive after it. It felt as if some kind of force had come over them and they no longer felt any fear, instead they felt hope and most of all…joy. The feeling could be described as warmth that was wrapping around their hearts and made them face the oncoming enemy with new resolve. The Fleet of Humanity felt completely unstoppable.

The impact of the song was not only felt by the soldiers in the fleet; the machines felt it too. The difference was that the machines didn't experience joy and hope, instead the song infected their internal circuits and wires and started to burn them from the inside out. At least until the machines couldn't take anymore and began to explode as well and the first wave fell with the onslaught of the ships and the song of Kim Stoppable, but one element was missing.

It was onboard the Neb Two, who was shooting down incoming bombs and sentinels, Ron "Neo" Stoppable's eyes had changed back from their electric blue luminescence to their original chestnut brown. He felt entranced by Kim's singing, more so than any other soldier in the fleet. It probably was because he knew that this song was about him and the night that he and Kim held each other in bed, or maybe it was because Ron just loved to hear his wife sing.

"Hey, Fearless Leader," Niobe called Ron's attention as she snapped her fingers in front of Ron's dazed face, "I hate to be rude, but you can get your wife to sing to you again after this is over, like when you're NOT DEAD! Right now, care to do the thing you do?"

"Oh," Ron snapped out of his own daze and brought his attention back to the situation at hand, "Right" He said as he closed his eyes for a moment, opened them, and they were once again that electric blue that radiated from his eyes. He raised his hand to the oncoming fleet and with his light-vision, he concentrated.

_Could it be you were right here beside me and I never knew…_

The waves that the Machine City Defense System were sending at the fleet were being attacked on three fronts. The first from the ships shooting down the sentinels and bombs that were coming at them, then there was Kim's song that melted the machines from the inside out, and then there was Ron's power. The fleet was then right on top of the defense system machines. The large, floating, bomb-firers, the song, the bullets, and the power had made them explode into blue flames that consumed them while they crumbled to the ground.

_Could it be that it's true that it's you?_

_That it's you…_

Onboard the Mad Dog, Captain Steve "Kid" Barkin was piloting while the rest of his crew manned the guns. He was pulling extreme evasive maneuvers to avoid the bombs that were coming at him, as well as the sentinels trying to cling to his ship. Yet, as he was turning his ship, he caught a glimpse of something on his holographic projector. There was a sentinel that was flying against the pattern of the other sentinels, like a salmon swimming against the stream. It came out ahead of the sentinels and began attacking the others, and it wasn't just one, soon there were other sentinels, older models that were joining in this machine rebellion.

"What the hell?" Barkin yelled, looking so surprised that he almost let go of the piloting controls, "They're on our side?"

The crew of the Neb Two saw the exact same thing and Niobe was just as confused about what they were seeing: Sentinels, search and destroy machines attacking their own kind. At first her instincts told her that it must be another one of Ron's powers, she as well as Ghost turned to look at the young boy, whose eyes were once again their normal cocoa color.

"Hey, don't look at me…" Ron said, raising his hand defensively at the questioning look that Niobe and Ghost gave him, as they continued their evasive maneuvers as Kim continued her song.

_It's kind of funny_

_You were always near_

_But who would have ever thought we'd end up here_

As the confusion of distinguishing the sentinels from rogue sentinels continued, the human fleet continued to advance ever further toward the Machine City. Though, only a few seconds after the rogue sentinels rose up against their own kind, something was sent to the Neb Two.

Ghost was the first to hear it and report it to Ron and Niobe.

"We have a COM from Zero One Two," he reported.

"Let's hear it," Ron commanded.

"This war ends today, guys," The young and familiar voice of Wade came through the speakers of the Neb Two cockpit and made Ron smile to hear such a voice, "Let's take these suckers down! Mom and I have rallied the human supporters in the city. Kim's song was the last nail in the coffin for them. We're with you…let's finish this!"

"Please and thank you, Wade….and you still rock, dude," Ron said with such a great smile as he mimicked Kim's usual response, "Think you can tell us where these sentinels are coming from?"

"On it's way to your NAV computer now, Ron," Wade replied, "By the way, Kim's really come a long way with her singing. Kick some ass!"

"Let's do it, bud," Ron had replied with a nod before asking of Ghost, "Are the channels still open to the rest of the fleet?"

"Yes, sir," Ghost responded.

"Did you hear that, people?" Ron asked, "Change of plans, forget the solar generators, target the locations added on your NAV systems."

"Roger that," some of the other captains had replied.

"Death from above!" Barkin added as he joined the attacking fleet while the song was still being sung and Kim's voice gave more hope to the soldiers, which burned in their hearts.

_And every time I needed you_

_You've been there to pull me through_

_Now it's clear_

_I've been waiting for you_

"Think you can trust him?" Niobe asked as she faced the Neb Two to jet past the oncoming bombs and sentinels.

"With my life," Ron stated with great confidence as his eyes changed color once again and he held out his hand. All around the Neb Two, as well as the other ships that were flying over the mountains, the sentinels and the bombs as well as the immense cannons exploded, while the rogue sentinels were unharmed and continued to fight with the fleet.

_Could it be you and I never imagined_

_Could it be…suddenly…I'm falling for you_

In the sight that Ron had, he could see the lights getting brighter and bright, until the Neb Two was fully over the mountains and he looked down to see Zero One Two. The entire city seemed like it was made completely of light, and, against the black void of the surrounding area, it looked like a golden nebula floating through space and giving birth to new stars. In its presence, Ron felt overwhelmed by the beauty of it all.

"My God…" He uttered, "It's so…beautiful…"

"Hey," Ghost called Ron's attention back, "You wanna focus here?"

"Right," Ron said bringing himself back to it, "I can see that the brightest points of the city are the areas that Wade had mapped out for us. Let's blow them straight to hell."

"Works for me," Niobe said as she took the controls of the Neb Two and sent it diving after the red targets on the NAV computer.

Above the city of Zero One Two, the Fleet of Humanity came over the target areas and dropped their entire payload of weapons because they wouldn't get a second chance if they didn't destroy them now.

_Could it be you were right here beside me and I never knew_

_Could it be that its true that it's you_

The first targets that the fleet was after were repair drone buildings, which, from a distance, looked like a very oddly shaped beehive. Though it didn't matter what it looked like since in the next second it was blown to bits and the repair drones along with it.

After destruction of the repair drone hives, Sentinels were deployed while inside their hornets' nest of a building more Sentinels were being built to counter-attack. It was this very complex that was the next target for the fleet, but they soon saw how tricky that would be with the sentinels coming for them.

"Finish off the sentinels!" Ron shouted out the order, "Destroy them before they rebuild the factories themselves!"

"We're on it!" Niobe snarled as she used moves on the Neb Two that Ron had only heard stories about. Niobe was making ninety-degree turns, flipping the ship over in mid-air, corkscrewing, and so many other tricks that Ron was glad that he was strapped in.  
He suddenly remembered that Kim was still standing up when Niobe started flying fancy, but since his ears could still hear the song, he knew that she had to be safe.

He looked out at the beings made of light and switched his vision back so that he could see normally. He saw that the massive cloud of sentinels was growing smaller by the minute. It was thanks to so many things: the four fronts that were attacking them, the song by Kim, the sheer grit of the fleet, the Power of the One, and the rogue sentinels. As the Sentinel Fleet of Zero One Two grew smaller, a slight feeling of relief came over the Neb Two crew.

"We're doing it…" Niobe exhaled as her skin sweated from the sheer nerves and workout of piloting the Neb Two, "…we're winning…"

Then the unthinkable happened…

A voice came in through the COM that made the hearts onboard the Nebuchadnezzar Two drop like cement bricks.

"This is the Mad Dog!" Steve 'Kid' Barkin's voice came through with the radio crackling slightly, "…going down... Mayday…mayday…"

Niobe, Ron, and Ghost looked at the holographic projector and were absolutely horrified by what they saw. It was only until Niobe had swung the Neb Two around to look at the Mad Dog that they saw how truly real it was. It was the Mad Dog, yet every inch of its hull was covered with sentinels; the only parts that were exposed were the hover pads, which the sentinels were cutting off and the cockpit window.

"Hang on, Kid!" Niobe called out as she shoved the controls of the Neb Two forward as hard as she could, "We're coming!"

_Because today is the start of the rest of our lives_

"Niobe…" Barkin had called over the COM, the scratchiness and crackling still there, but his voice sounding calm as if he found some kind of peace, "you and Morpheus take care of Possible and Stoppable…Ron…Neo…I believe…I know that it was never a dream…"

The sound of the COM from the Mad Dog and the Neb Two was cut off as they watched the sentinels cut the last hoverpad and the ship began to explode. The balls of fire completely consumed the ship and the sentinels as the Mad Dog made its nose dive plummet to the machine city below where it gave one last burst of blue flames.

_I can see it in your eyes_

"No!" Ron screamed as his eyes fixed upon the burning wreckage of the Mad Dog. Even though Steve Barkin wasn't the warmest of men back in Middleton, Ron still looked up to him in a way. To see his ship, hear those last words, and imagine him dying had set something loose in Ron as his voice changed drastically.

The change in Ron frightened Niobe and Ghost right down to their very bones. They suddenly heard several voices coming from Ron, as if several people had possessed him. The fear was as dense as pea-soup-fog around them as they heard Ron say in that multiplied voice:

"This ends…" He said as he unbuckled himself from his seat and stood up. Niobe and Ghost were frozen as they watched his eyes burn with that aqua colored energy, but that wasn't all. Around Ron's body there was a… a… an aura…of light colored in red, yellow, and orange. The way that the aura was being emitted was like a combination of electrical sparks and the flames of fire.

_Oh that it's real, and it's true, and it's just me and you_

_Could it be… that it's true… that it's you…_

The energy that came from Ron felt warm to the sweat soaked skin of Niobe and Ghost almost like the rays of the sun itself, but it still had such a frightening effect when they looked into Ron's spark-spouting eyes. They were almost like the blue flame visible where the fire was the hottest. The aura began to move outward from Ron as if he were a forest fire, it was so much that it made Niobe and Ghost gasp in fear and amazement.

_Could it be you and I never imagined_

_Could it be suddenly I'm falling for you_

"This ends…now!" Ron screamed in that multiplied voice as the aura shot outward from his body like a star going supernova, the arcs of yellow, red, and orange light passing through the walls of the Neb Two, not leaving a scratch on the ship, surging through the city of Zero One Two as well as the sentinel army. The beams would pass through each sentinel, and, at first, it looked like they would be undamaged by them as the Neb Two was, but only a second later, the sentinels began to explode.

_Could it be you were right here beside me and I never knew._

The explosions were instant and exponential; it started with one, and then erupted into waves in the middle of the attack. There were explosions of red and yellow with black clouds rising up while machine parts fell to the city below. The arcs of energy from the One spread across the sky like fireworks on Independence Day. They were the true sign that the battle was over, and it seemed fitting that the machines were defeated by something so similar to fireworks, since, in the years to come, that day would be called "Neo Independence Day".

_Could it be that it's true that it's you_

_That it's you…_

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That was how it ended; the very last sentinel fell to the ground of Zero One Two in a mangled mass of its own tentacles, while over the COM of the fleet, the applause and joy of the soldiers was almost palpable. Onboard the Neb Two, Ron's aura was gone, as was the neon colored energy from his eyes. The attack had taken so much out of the young boy and he collapsed back into his seat while the sweat dripped over his face. As he took a couple of deep breaths, a familiar voice had come through.

"Ron!" He heard Kim's voice and soon felt her body atop of his. He saw her face streamed with tears before she started kissing her husband all over his sweaty face, "We won!"

"Sorry guys," Wade's voice came through the COM speakers, "I said we wouldn't see each other again, but I never said anything about not hearing from each other again."

Wade's smile was so big that it looked like his head might fall off.

"Thanks for the help, Wade," Ron thanked as he pulled himself on to his feet, "But this war isn't over yet…Deus Ex Machina…he's gotta go down before we can have any kind of true peace. He wants us dead…and he'll keep building Sentinels until he kills us all."

"But Ron…" Niobe spoke out, rather worried about the prospects of what was going to be suggested to end the war.

"He's right, guys," Wade agreed, "WE betrayed him, so he'll be after those like myself and mom. If you want this war to be over, you have to destroy him, Ron…you're the only one who can."

"Why does Ron have to do it?" Kim asked bitterly as more tears came down her face, "Haven't we done enough already? _Hasn't he done enough?_"

"Kim…" Wade stated sadly, "he's the One…he's the only one who has a chance."

"So, I'll need to go to the source," Ron had concluded, "I'll have to jack in, think you can get Link the codes to get me to the mainframe?"

"Ten steps ahead of you," Wade stated happily, but then warned, "But it is dangerous, Ron. Deus Ex Machina is no fool, he has a guardian who will use your greatest fear against you, so be ready for it."

"Thanks for the heads up, buddy. Well then, let's get to it," Ron announced with great enthusiasm as Kim positioned herself so that her husband could get out of his chair. He headed towards the door, but made a small turn to Niobe and Ghost first, "Niobe, get the fleet to cover us while I go in."

"You got it," Niobe acknowledged.

As Niobe relayed the information to the other ships, Ron went down to the Jack Chamber, where Link was waiting for him. It wasn't hard to believe that Link must have overhead the discussion and was ready to serve out his job as Operator one last time. Looking at Link ready to load him in, Ron smiled at the fact that this would be their last hurrah.

"The chair is waiting for you, Ron," Link reported, "Go in there and kick some ass for us all."

Just before Ron went to the semi-circle of chairs, Link held out his hand to Ron and gave a chain, a silver colored chain with little, oddly-shaped objects on it.

"What's this?" Ron asked inquisitively of Link.

"Put it around your neck," Link instructed, "It's a good luck charm that my wife, Zee, gave to me at the end of the last war. She told me that it brought her luck and hoped it would bring me back to her, and it did. I'm sure that she won't mind you using it this once…now let's get this over with so we can go home and do some serious partying."

Ron gave Link a small nod and smile as he slipped the chain around his neck and headed into the semi-circle of chairs. It was déjà vu all over again as he chose one chair out of them all and got into it as his gaze turned to the fidgeting Kim. He wanted to tell her something and now was a good time as any.

"That was a great song, Kim," He told her rather weakly as he scratched the back of his head, "I really liked it…"

"I'm getting tired of this, Ron…" Kim whimpered as her eyes watered, ready to over flow, "Is it ever going to end?"

"Yes. It's going to end today, Kim," Ron told his wife as he pulled her into a tight hug. He whispered into her ear, "I'm going to go in, fight, win, and come back. When I do, we will never have to fight again."

"First sign of trouble, I'm coming in after you," Kim stated in her 'Kim-ness' as she stroked his cheek with her finger tips, "Our little ones helped me…if need be…they'll help me help their daddy."

She stroked her husband's cheek while her free hand covered her exposed belly. As she did Ron leaned into her, his forehead resting against hers.

"I love you, Kimmie," He whispered as his lips brushed ever so softly against hers. He could feel Kim's body trembling against his, while his ears could pick up a very faint whisper from Kim, and even though he couldn't make it out at first, he knew what she was saying. He could feel it in his heart that Kim truly loved him. Ron pulled himself back into the Jack Chair, and told his wife, "I have to go play hero now."

"Just be careful in there," Kim advised Ron as she laid one last kiss upon her husband's lips. She then went to the back of the chair, took the plug; and was about to insert it, but she said, "Good luck, my love…"

With that, she inserted the plug into Ron's cranial port, and he felt that sharp sting in the back of his head while Link was loading him back into the Matrix with the codes Wade had given to him. The time had come.

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Ron "Neo" Stoppable was about to open his eyes when a very sharp sting erupted across his face. He could feel himself wincing as he wondered where it came from, but as his mind went through the possibilities he heard a voice.

"Dang it, Ron! Wake up!" The voice shrieked at him in such a way that his ears were stinging along with his right cheek. That was when a second impact had struck his left cheek.

Ron could feel that he was lying down on something very hard and flat, which he guessed was a concrete floor from how cold and rough it felt against the back of his head. He slowly stirred and got himself back up to a sitting position as his hand pressed against his stinging face and the other supported him. He opened his eyes, blinked, and by the third or fourth blink, his eyes came in contact with Kim Possible. As he looked at her in his confusion, she slapped him again, a third time, across his already stinging left cheek.

"It's about time," Kim grunted in annoyance at Ron.

"Kim?" Ron groaned, his face throbbing, wondering why Kim was like that when a few minutes ago she was kissing him, hugging him, and wishing that he didn't have to go into the Matrix. It was even more confusing when Ron looked at Kim from head to toe and noticed that she was back in her old mission clothes. The tight black shirt, black gloves, combat boots, and loose fitting cargo pants, the very clothes that Kim was wearing before she and Ron were freed from the Matrix, but why? Why was she wearing them, Ron had thought, and why was she mad?

"Don't 'Kim' me, Ron;" Kim hissed angrily, "You screwed up worse than usual!"

"I don't understand…" Ron shook his head, but then looked down with equal confusion to find himself in his old mission clothes as well. 'What is going on?' he thought, utterly bewildered by his situation, 'What in the hell is happening?'

"Oh that figures," Kim rolled her eyes at Ron's confusion, "We had them, Ron. _We nearly had them!_' Her voice practically screaming at him, "Drakken and Shego were right there you know? We had them and the device that they stole from the Merovingian right there …and then _you_ happened!"

"Drakken?" Ron thought quietly as he looked around, "Shego? The device from the Merovingian? That was six months ago…" He continued to look around and found that he was in that hideout where he had the first glimpse of his power of the One. Yet, that question of why he was there still persisted.

"And while you were lying there unconscious," Kim continued on her angry rant against Ron, "I became late for my date with Josh! I think he even rented a hotel room for us for our anniversary, but leave it to you to screw it all up! You're so pathetic that it's no wonder no girl will even look at you!"

"It's not real…" Ron shook his head as he remembered where exactly he was, before he looked up at Kim and asked, "Don't you remember, KP? The Matrix? Neo Zion? Your parents? The Oracle? Our wedding?"

"Oh great," Kim rolled her eyes once again, "The idiot's head's worse off then I thought…" Kim paused as she clicked her tongue and looked down at Ron with surprised shock, "Wait…our wedding? _Our wedding?_ Are you getting fresh with me, Stoppable?"

"Kim," Ron said with such earnest as he got back onto his feet, but, as he got up onto one foot, he was soon met with a sharp kick to his crotch. The impact went beyond pain for Ron. It did seem unfair that women never had such physical weaknesses, but in retrospect having one's balls kicked did feel like two water balloons exploding in his body, and that wasn't the end of it. Kim then brought down her elbow onto Ron's neck, which coupled with the pain between his legs was enough to send him down to the concrete floor.

"Stay down, loser!" Kim sharply growled, her emerald eyes burning with such fury, "I'm _Josh's_ girlfriend! Someday, I'm going to be his wife! The only time I'd marry you is obviously in your dreams! I _thought_ you could be mature…I _thought _I could _trust_ you to be my best friend and _not_ overstep your boundaries. Yet again, I've put too much faith in you."

"Wade warned me about this," Ron thought as he grinded his teeth from the pain in his neck and between his legs, "he's trying to trick me…but what if this isn't fake?" Ron opened his eyes and continued to endure the pain as he glanced up at the angry redhead.

"You're not…my Kim…" he told her rather defiantly.

"What was that?" Kim snarled as she narrowed her eyes at Ron.

"I said," Ron grunted in getting back to his feet, "_You're not my Kim…"_

"Delusional…" Kim shook her head before she grabbed Ron's arm, looked him in the face and said, "and annoying." She finished by throwing Ron over her shoulder, the small of his back hitting hard against the concrete floor. The pain from the impact only intensified with his other injuries.

"It's over, Ron," Kim growled as she stood glaring down at Ron, who was still writhing in pain, "our friendship is over."

"SHUT UP!" Another voice echoed through the hide-out.

Ron turned his head, scraping it against the concrete floor, but smiled when he saw another Kim standing there. The Kim that he remembered, who wore that deep, red leather trench coat, red-tinted, reflective, oval sunglasses, the skintight, black leather vest that zipped up the front and showed off her bare midriff, and the matching, skintight black leather pants that hung low on her hips showing off the curves of her lower body. Though the look on her face showed no signs of the gentleness that Ron remembered a few minutes ago; this time it contorted into a demon's mask of rage.

To Kim, when she came into the Source after seeing Ron in trouble on the coded screens, seeing the scene that she was witnessing, and to hear the words from… herself. Such words coming from lips and a voice that were hers, but at the same time not hers. She knew that Ron was in trouble, but she never, in her wildest imagination, would have expected something like this. It wasn't Ron's nightmare…it was **_hers_**. It was the one that she'd had even before she was freed from the Matrix. Seeing herself like that, the rage began to bubble and rise to the surface, more so when she began to think and realize that, at that time back then, she never considered it a nightmare.

There were times when she wanted to hit Ron, hurt him, and just push him out of her life in general. Yet, the part of her that already knew what he meant to her simply pushed those horrible thoughts away as much as possible and tried to bury them. Unfortunately, just because the feelings were shoved aside or buried didn't stop her from being cruel from time to time. In the time that she'd been with Ron, both in and out of the Matrix, those thoughts only added guilt to her being with him, especially after how horrible a person she was to him. She started to feel that she didn't deserve him for all the dark and evil thoughts that resided in the depths of her heart.

As she looked over at her other self, she soon realized that the girl she was looking at represented everything that she hated in herself; her ego, her vanity, her selfishness, and her immaturity. That was when her rage had exploded.

The "other" Kim, Kim Possible, didn't know what had hit her as Kim "Angel" Stoppable closed the distance between them in a heartbeat; she lifted Kim Possible off the ground with both hands around her thin neck. She took one hand away so she could take off her red-tinted sunglasses. She looked at Kim Possible with her emerald eyes so her copy would know the burning hatred that was held within them. After Kim Stoppable gave Kim Possible one good look at her eyes, she choke-slammed her down onto the concrete, cracking the floor under her. Once Kim Possible was down, Kim Stoppable straddled her belly like a saddle, pinning her copy to the hard floor.

"I hate you…" Kim hissed at her copy as she reached up and slammer her clenched fist down upon her enemy, "I hate you…"

Her repetition grew louder as she continued to slam her fists against Kim Possible's face, one after the other.

"I hate everything you are…" Kim "Angel" Stoppable continued to hiss, her voice starting to tremble, her fists feeling the bones in Kim Possible's face begin to splinter, completely ignoring the blood that was spilling out with each blow, "You never knew what you had…you always wanted more…YOU NEVER KNEW!"

Kim Stoppable continued to pound blow after blow into Kim Possible's face, until blood, teeth, and even skin began to fly from her. As she kept up her beating, tears began to stream down her face, sniffling each chance she got between blows, and the punches started to make more of a sloshing sound rather than hard thuds, until the body underneath could do nothing but twitch.

"You had everything!" Kim Stoppable shrieked at the bloodstained and now headless body that was Kim Possible, "Everything! _I hate you!_"

"Kim," Ron's gentle voice spoke from behind her as an equally gentle hand reached out and set itself upon her shoulder. Kim "Angel" Stoppable turned away from the twitching, lifeless body and into the comforting arms of her husband as she let her tears fall, sobbing uncontrollably into his chest.

"I heard…" Kim blubbered, sniffling between each word as she looked back at the pulverized and bruise-ridden body of Kim Possible, "…a saying…you can't love…if you don't…love yourself. How can I…how can I love…you…if…if…I hate myself?"

"The answer is simple, really," another voice spoke up before Ron could answer his wife. The two of them looked in the direction of the voice and there they found the Oracle walking toward them with a smile on her face as if they were meeting by accident in public, "That girl wasn't you, Kim, at least not anymore. That girl there…was Kim Possible…a girl so self-centered that she couldn't see past her own ideology of doing anything without anyone's help. While you…Kim "Angel" Stoppable, believes in the power that comes from the connection with your husband and children, no longer foolishly believing you can do all. Where once was a selfish girl longing for attention out of fear of being along now stands a woman, who stands at her husband's side as his companion and partner. You've done things in the past that you regret…and that is what makes you a different person from the body down there." The Oracle motioned to the battered body, which began to degrade into its base code as they watched until it blew away like so much dust in the wind.

"You're not the one I have to fight…" Ron asked, very worried about what the answer might be, "…are you?"

"Oh, heavens no, Ron," The Oracle chuckled at the boy's frightful question, "I'm just here to open the door, so you can clean up the mess left behind years ago." She then rummaged through her purse, pulled out two green mints, and asked, "Candy?"

"I don't think…" Kim started to refuse when Ron's hand had reached out to the Oracle's hand and took one of the green mints.

"Ah, candy," Ron smiled as he started to wrestle with the clear plastic wrapper, obviously unable to break the plastic film covering the sweet inside. He then turned to Kim and asked hopefully, "Um…could you help, KP?"

"Stop bullets…" Kim smirked as she took the piece of candy and started to unwrap it, "…fly… destroy hundred of Sentinels with a gesture …and he can't get into a piece of candy."

"Some things change, and some things _never_ do, right Kimmie?" The Oracle smiled at the young couple, "Everything that has a beginning also has an end, but for every end also there is the beginning of a new tale. This is the way of things both human and machine. This story….your story…is coming to a close, children. You both have come a long way since that day at that pre-school under the shade of that oak tree…I've watched you the whole time, you know? You've done such good, saved so many before and after you learned the truth of your existence. You are both the stuff of legends and will be talked about generations into the future."

The Oracle held out her hand towards the nearby wall, and the codes reformed into a door. Yet, to the eyes of Ron "Neo" Stoppable, it was no ordinary door; this one was made of light, every line of the code blazed like the sun itself. The déjà vu was coming back over him, he knew that the door; he had walked through it six times before.

"There is your path, Neo," The Oracle spoke to Ron, "you must travel this final mile alone, with only the knowledge of your family and friends awaiting your victory. Finish what has begun…should you win this battle…great will be your reward."

"We're going in together," Kim stated firmly.

"Sorry, Kimmie, but you can't, not this time," The Oracle stated regretfully, "This is Ron's fight. Besides, once he goes in, he'll need a reason to come back out."

"I won't let Ron…" Kim stated just as Ron stepped forward towards the newly formed door.

"Then let's get to it," Ron stated firmly, "Kim, return to the ship. Don't worry, I won't be long."

"Ron…but…but…" she stammered, reaching for his hand as if she didn't want to let go of it ever again, "What…what if…"

"I'm coming back, KP," Ron had told his wife as he leaned into give her a small kiss on her cheek, tasting the tears that she was shedding, "Trust me, Kim…trust…and believe in me…that's all I ask."

Kim looked up at Ron, knowing that she should believe in him, because he believed in her so many times before. She then turned her gaze downward to the concrete floor in defeat.

"I do…" Kim whispered as she pulled Ron into a rib-crushing hug, she only wished that she could have stayed like that, in his arms forever, "I do trust you and believe in you…so don't let me down, Ron…I'm…we're all counting on you."

"I won't," Ron whispered back as he broke the embrace, "You better get back…I'll be home as soon as I can."

"Okay," Kim said rather weakly, still unsure of the outcome of it all, "just be careful…I love you…Ron Stoppable."

"I will…" Ron responded, "I love you too…Kim Stoppable…"

With that, The Oracle had taken Kim's hand and led her down to the other end of the room and out of sight. Leaving him behind with only the door of light in front of him. He looked at it, bringing his forearm over his face to shield his eyes from the light as he approached the door.

"Well…" he said to himself trying to give himself a really good reason as any to go through, "it's now…or never…"

He took his forearm away from his face, endured the pain of the light in his eyes as he reached for the doorknob. His fingers encircled the door knob, his wrist turned it, and his arm pulled the door open. With the door opened and being nearly blinded by the light beyond it, he closed his eyes, and stepped through the door.

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Ron had always heard stories of people who had near death experiences where they would usually go through a dark tunnel with a bright light at the end. Who knew that he would be experiencing the same thing without dying? The Oracle knew, more than likely, as Ron had thought about it. He felt the bright light starting to dim and he took his arm away from his face and opened his eyes.

He found himself in a very odd environment; it looked like the lobby or perhaps the front foyer of some great building. Out of instinct, he looked behind him and found that there were no doors whatsoever to the outside. Then out of the corner of his left eye, he saw a window in the circular wall of the foyer. He went to it and found it to be one of those sliding glass doors. He opened it, feeling a cool breeze as he did so. He saw clouds and blue sky beyond, but then he looked down and found nothing but a sky blue void that stretched downward, outward, and upward to infinity. He brought himself back in and quickly closed the glass threshold thinking that he would never open that door ever again.

Remembering that this was supposed to be the Source, he decided to have a look around. In the foyer was a front desk with no one there. The few chairs behind the desk had been pulled out as if someone had been there recently, but Ron could feel nothing that would explain the emptiness around him.

As Ron moved around, he found that he wasn't in his old mission clothes anymore, instead he found himself back in his Matrix clothes: his long black duster that buttoned up from his waist, as well as the pair of sunglasses in his pocket, though since he was indoors, it didn't exactly make sense to put them on.

"Now, this really should have been expected," Ron said to himself as he went past the front foyer to, what he gathered, was the center of the bottom floor. At the center, he saw what looked like a Japanese rock garden, complete with a waterfall, bamboo plants, coral at the bottom pool of the waterfall as well as a big, stone turtle, and sand raked up to look like so many waves. The sound of the water running echoed, which made Ron look up and gape as the walls seemed to stretch on forever.

Looking to the left, Ron saw the opening of a wide ram; his eye followed the edge of the ramp, and soon saw that it became a stairwell. Seeing no other way, he walked onward and upward with the trickling water of the Japanese garden echoing below him.

He came to the first level of what have been the Source. He tried looking around at it in code, but only caught a glimpse of it before he had change his vision back to normal. The code wasn't green like it was in the Matrix; it was white, a burning white that if stared too long could permanently blind anyone looking.

He found the first level a little confusing when he looked around and found the place to be just like a library. There were tables and chairs around the ramp stairway while against the circular walls were shelves upon shelves and rows upon rows of books. The Source, the Machine Mainframe; of all places it could take the form of, it had to be a library. Then again, as Ron thought about it, it did make sense; therein, the books would contain information that would probably take lifetimes to sort through.

Only, it was no time to stop and smell the ink and paper, he had to search. He looked up towards the ceiling of the first level and found a sign that read:

**# - Ab**

"Deus ex Machina…" Ron thought to himself, "Must be a few levels up."

As Ron walked, he heard a song being played, it was soft like the songs that were played in doctors' waiting rooms or in supermarkets. He recognized the song and even gave a humorous scoff when he heard the intro coming from the multiple speakers in the ceilings of each level: The beginning was a soft piano before the melancholic lyrics started:

_I can't stand to fly…_

_I'm not that naïve _

_I'm just out to find…_

_The better part of me…_

_I'm more than a bird…_

_I'm more than a plane…_

_I'm more than some pretty face beside a train.._

_And it's not easy to be me…_

Ron continued to walk up the spiraling ramp, past each level he came to. It seemed that he was going in circles until he came a certain level; he didn't know which one it was, as he had lost count somewhere between sections "Be – Bi" and "Co – Cu". All that mattered was that he found the sign reading:

**De – Du**

"It has to be here," He thought to himself as he came off the spiraling ramp, walked past the tables, and was about to start his search. However, before he could start in earnest, he happened upon a table with books scattered across its surface. He stopped to look at the table out of a sudden curiosity he had, as if the table was calling to him. Chairs near that table were pulled out as if someone was sitting there, reading those books, and then got up and left for no apparent reason. Ron looked up and saw that there was no one around.

"Hello?" Ron called out, hoping or perhaps dreading that someone would be around. Instead his voice echoed back to him, and the lyrics of that song continued to play.

_I wish that I could cry…_

_Fall upon my knees…_

_Find a way to lie…_

_About a home I'll never see…_

_It may sound absurd_

_But don't be naïve _

_Even heroes have the right to bleed_

_I may be disturbed…but won't you concede_

_Even heroes have the right to dream_

_It's not easy to be me. _

_Up, up and away…away from me_

_It's alright…you can sleep sound tonight_

_I'm not crazy or anything.._

_I can't stand to fly…_

_I'm not that naïve _

_Men weren't meant to ride_

_With clouds between their knees_

_I'm only a man in a silly red sheet_

_Digging for kryptonite on this one way street_

_Only a man in a funny red sheet_

_Looking for special things inside of me_

_Inside of me…_

_Inside of me…_

_Yeah, inside of me_

_Inside of me…_

_I'm only a man_

_In a funny red sheet_

_I'm only a man looking for a dream_

_I'm only a man_

_In a funny red sheet_

_And it's not easy, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm…_

_It's not easy…to be…me…_

Ron couldn't help his curiosity and sat down at that table to look at what books were laid out there. As paranoid as it may have been at the time, it seemed that it was all laid out for him, like a hot breakfast buffet waiting for him. He didn't want to think about who did it as he began to pick up the books, one in each hand, read the title and set them aside to pick up another.

"_Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling_

"_Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" by J.K. Rowling_

"_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" by J.K. Rowling_

"_Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" by J.K. Rowling_

"_Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" by J.K. Rowling_

_"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J. K. Rowling_

_"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J. K. Rowling  
_

"Heh," Ron laughed to himself, "Someone's a really big Harry Potter fan…shame I can't take these books with me…my little girls might love them."

He began looking through the other books that were on the table:

_"Activating Evolution" by Dr. Chandra Suresh_

"_Out of Control" by Kevin T. Kelly_

"_Evolutionary Psychology"_

"_Simulacra and Simulation" by Jean Baudrillard _

"_Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll_

_"The Complete Animorphs Series" by K. A. Applegate_

Ron then came upon three other books that seemed truly odd to him. It didn't occur to him how odd until he picked up one of them and took a good look at the cover artwork. He saw… himself… yes… He had to blink a couple of times to make sure he wasn't seeing things. There he was, Ron Stoppable, on the cover of the book; he was also saw Kim and Rufus with him. Yet, at the same time, it couldn't have been them, because Ron was wearing a red tunic wielding a sword, whose blade was a red glowing shaft of light. Even Rufus was out of place, wearing some kind of brown robe and wielding a similar laser sword like Ron, but it was blue with one blade on each end. Kim was the strangest of all, wearing some kind of green and black futuristic outfit that clung to her body, and holding a futuristic-looking gun in her hand, But, the icing on the cake of strangeness that Ron was experiencing was in the title:

"_Star Wars: Knights of the New Republic"_

_By_

_Classic Cowboy_

"Knights of the New Republic?" Ron asked himself, becoming more disturbed as he looked at the last two books. The second to last had himself as well as Kim on the cover, but in the background there were the faces of robots along with the faces of five young boys. He looked at the title:

"_Silent Wars"_

_By_

_Turles_

Setting that one aside, Ron then looked to the last book's cover. He saw himself, but it disturbed him in how he looked. In the background, the sky was cloudy and looking as if it was about to rain. Then there was Ron in the foreground in those clothes that he wore in his Middleton days, the cargos, black shirt, and the red and white jersey. Yet, around Ron's face there was a blood soaked bandage covering his eyes with more blood running down his face like tears. Then there was the outstretched left hand that was also covered in blood as if he dipped his hand into it. He then looked to the title:

"_Paragon"_

_By_

_Jao_

"What the…" Ron asked as he opened the book to the first page and read, "Paragon….noun…a model of excellence or perfection of a kind; a peerless example."

He flipped open the book and found an illustration that caused him to drop the book and back away from the table. The image he saw seemed as real as it was unreal. He saw Kim standing over him, knife in hand, and raised above her head. To make it even MORE disturbing, Ron had actually watched the illustration move in the page, watched as Kim was plunging the knife into him, stabbing him…killing him…

"What the hell is this!" Ron asked in his panic, shocked by what he had seen.

"They are other lives, Mister Stoppable," A voice answered his question.

The very sound of that voice made his very blood run cold in his veins. He still had to look. He turned his gaze up and there he was, Agent Smith once again, but different now. He was still wearing that black and white agent's suit but he was without his sunglasses, and in the crook of his left arm were two books.

"These are events that haven't taken place in your life, but could have," Smith finished his explanation as he came closer to the table.

"Smith…" Ron snarled, his eyes narrowing as he took his defensive fighting stance.

"Yes, but you can relax," Smith explained as he waved his hand at Ron, telling him nonverbally to calm down, "I only wish to speak to you before we have our '_climactic battle of good and evil'_, if you don't mind. I was just out looking for more books and I found this one to be very interesting."

Smith laid down a book upon the table that had no cover artwork on it, only the title imprinted in gold letters like so many older books in libraries:

"_The Batman"_

"I don't understand," Ron stated, staring at the suited man before him, "You should be dead…I destroyed all the copies!"

"Indeed Mister Stoppable, but you should remember the key word there: copies," Smith pointed out with a playful smirk as he took a seat opposite Ron, "I must confess that you and Miss Possible have the most interesting books here."

Ron sat down and began to think about why Smith was there, was he the guardian? He tried to see the code of the Source, like trying to stare at the sun without going blind. He only saw a small glimpse, but then saw that the code around Smith was just like the source, all made of light. Yet, seeing that code, Ron came to a very startling conclusion, and he sat down across from Smith.

"You're the first…aren't you?" He asked, trying to confirm his suspicions of it all.

"Yes," Smith answered as he opened up the second book that he had been carrying, "Yes, indeed. I see that some of my wisdom has entered your pathetic cow brain, but I think you should already know by now that we are alike. Tell me…are you familiar with the story behind the original Matrix? The Failed One?"

Ron nodded.

"Well then," Smith continued as he turned the pages of the book, "do you know _why_ it failed?"

"It was too perfect?" Ron gave the guess that he had.

"Wrong," Smith shook his head, never taking his gaze away from the open book he had, "it wasn't that different from the version that went offline recently. Though, it was a bit more…colorful. However, that's not the real reason of why it failed. Mister Stoppable, not even close… would you care for me to elaborate… or… would you like to jump to the part where we beat each other to bloody pulps?"

"What happened?" Ron asked, his curiosity peaked to know the why, and what had happened at the construction of the first Matrix. He watched as Smith closed the book that he was looking through, leaned over, and set it in front of Ron.

"Read," Smith instructed as he leaned back in his chair.

Ron picked up the book Smith handed to him. It was a thick, hardcover book with a shining new book jacket that was completely black except for the bright green Matrix code that ran from the top to the bottom of the cover. Amongst the green Matrix code there was the title printed in jagged green text:

"_The Matrix: Genesis"_

Ron looked back up at Smith.

"Read page six-hundred-sixty-five," Smith instructed.

Ron flipped open the book to the page that Smith told him and read:

110101100110100111001011011100101010110101

_Page 665 Matrix Genesis _

"_You have a choice, Smith," The Architect explained, "You can go to the source, choose a number of your choice humans, male and female, instruct them to build a city on the location I shall give you thus continuing the series with the upgraded systems of the Matrix…or…go back into the Matrix and let mankind die…your choice…of course."_

"_How do I know you're telling the truth?" the young man asked removing his sunglasses to glare at the old emotionless man._

"_You don't," The Architect stated coldly._

"_Fine, I'll play it your way," Smith snorted, "if nothing else, it will buy mankind time to rise up against you monsters."_

_With that, Smith entered the door…and the source. The light from the door was too much for his human eyes to stand, but soon enough, the light had cleared. Smith took his arm away from his eyes and found that the Source, the Machine Mainframe, was a library. He looked all around him to find shelves of books, volumes upon volumes of books. The mass of knowledge beyond anything his human eyes had ever seen._

"_It's time to choose your people, Smith," The Oracle told the One named Smith, "Name the first heroes of Zion."_

"_You know what, old hag?" Smith asked turning towards the Oracle, with an evil grin stretching across his young face, "I choose…option C…"_

110101100110100111001011011100101010110101

"What happened next?" Ron asked nervously as his eyes looked up at Smith and back down to the page, rereading it to see if it was real.

"Turn the page and see," Smith instructed as he crossed his arms.

Ron took a deep breath and turned the page, his stomach turning and twisting with the fear of what he may find on that page.

110101100110100111001011011100101010110101

_Page 666 Matrix Genesis_

_Smith used his power, the power of the Anomaly, the Power of the One, and absorbed all the knowledge in the library. With every book in the Source, he separated himself permanently from his human body, forsaking his human birth…and his human heritage. With the power of the One, plus the power of the Source, Smith…recreated the Matrix. A Matrix filled with darkness and pain and exiled the Oracle along with her followers into the dream world of man._

_In this day, the Second War of the Machines began…_

_Smith was destroyed…_

_From his ashes rose…Deus Ex Machina. _

110101100110100111001011011100101010110101

"Why are you showing me this?" Ron asked as he glanced up again at Agent Smith.

"The Oracle once said everything that has a beginning has an end," Smith stated with a board sigh, "You cannot face the ending of this conflict, Mister Stoppable, unless you know the beginning."

Ron still gazed at Smith still in confusion.

"Let me clarify things for you, Mister Stoppable," Smith continued as he stood up, "I was once like you. I was born to a pair of loving parents. They treated me well, but I was less than popular, I always knew this paradise wasn't real. I had nothing, but a best friend who I loved. We were freed together, but when my time came to face the Architect…she died…so that I could face my destiny. I faced it…and I took control of it…and every other pathetic and weak human that there was and ever will be…"

"But why?" Ron asked as he stood up, "Why not save them? Why cause so much pain and suffering?"

"Why?" Smith answered back sounding confused, "Why should I, Mister Stoppable? If anyone knows what it's like to be looked down upon like dirt, it is you and I. What has this world ever done for me? Took her away from me, like it will take Miss Possible…I'm sorry…Misses Stoppable away from you. Pain is the nature of man, Mister Stoppable. To be alive…is to feel pain."

"Did you ever tell this girl how you felt?" Ron asked with a very cool demeanor.

"You know, between reloadings, I've taken up a hobby here, Mister Stoppable," Smith stated as he sharply changed the subject, "you and Miss Possible have very interesting parallel lives. I do not know if these dimensions are real or just events…products of overactive imaginations, but you and Miss Possible seem to have active lives in these worlds. In _some_ worlds, you are darker than anything that even I could conceive, you and her are driven insane or even to suicide. While in others, one of you are raised to be great heroes. Even some that are known to us here, such as Spider-Man, Batman, Captain America, the Avatar of the Crow, even those of legend like vampires and werewolves. There was even a story where you two were secret agents, you being codenamed after a snake and Miss Possible after a fox… appropriate… wouldn't you say?"

That's when it occurred to Ron…

"You never told her," he said to Smith, his conclusions bordering upon earth shattering for him, "You probably even fought before you went to the Architect. That's it, isn't it? You already planned on using your power to take control, to take revenge, and she fought you for it, didn't she?"

"_You know nothing, boy!"_ Smith snapped at Ron, his shoulders rising and falling with the rage that was building within him, "_You know nothing about anything!_"

"What are you so afraid of?" Ron asked as he reached down to pick up the black and green coded book, "You said yourself, you cannot fact the end unless you know the beginning…so…let's look back a few pages."

"Put the book down and fight me!" Smith demanded, sounding almost fearful of what secret that Ron may find in that book.

Ron didn't listen to Smith's demand; he simply backtracked a little bit to a few pages before the one that Smith had marked and he read the truth about the beginning. He only got a small glance before Smith reached over and knocked the book out of Ron's hands, but it was enough for Ron to understand everything. Ron looked at Smith, whose face was contorted with anger and fury to hide the fear in his eyes. Ron saw it anyway.

"You were the first," Ron began, "Now I'm ashamed to have taken up the mantle that you bore, Smith."

Smith only growled through his teeth that he was grinding.

"The Machines didn't kill her," Ron continued, from what he read on that page, "You strangled her… for trying to stop you… she begged you not to meet with the Architect."

"Shut up…" Smith quietly growled.

"The Machines weren't even at war at that time," Ron went further, "you didn't have to do what you did…you didn't have to face the Architect…you didn't have to declare war…she wanted you to leave with her."

"I said…shut up…" Smith growled a little louder than before.

"The Matrix wasn't what you told us it was, right?" Ron asked, getting closer to the truth, "It was necessary, our own mistakes made our world uninhabitable. The Machines and Humans had made peace. The Matrix was never meant to be permanent. It was just to keep us alive until the world was livable again, but that changed; you wouldn't have it that way, would you? You had to have control…you had to have mankind weak and at your feet."

"I said, SHUT UP!" Smith demanded.

"It's the truth, isn't it?" Ron asked with a smug smirk, "She loved you. She told you so, but you didn't want love."

"I said, SHUT UP!" Smith screamed, jumping over the table like a frog moving from one lily pad to the next and, with his hands stretched out, wrapped his fingers around Ron's neck. With Smith pressed against Ron in his attack, the two toppled over one another into the shelves of books.

"You wanted fear, Smith!" Ron cried out as his body was slammed into one of the bookshelves, which began to lean back, fall over, and created a domino effect for the other bookshelves.

"I am not Smith!" The rogue program declared, his voice echoing throughout the entire library, while the walls, ceiling, and floor rippled around him, "I am Deus Ex Machina!"

"I don't care what you want to be called," Ron grunted as he got up from the rubble of books and shelves, "I'm just going to call you beaten."

As Ron got to his feet, he could feel that aura that Smith was emitting; he was trying to manipulate the code within the source. Ron certainly wasn't a fool and was ready for anything that Smith could dish out. As Ron was preparing himself for this new battle, a new song came on the speaker. It started with a heart pumping beat, great guitar chords, and then the lyrics:

_Sometimes when your hopes have all been shattered_

_And there's nowhere to turn _

_You wonder how you keep going_

_Think of all the things that really mattered _

_And the chances you've earned_

_The fire in your heart is growing _

_You can fly, if you try leaving the past behind_

_Heaven only knows what you may find_

"You think you can defeat me, boy?" Smith challenged the confident, young hero.

_Dare – dare to believe you can survive_

"One must stand," Ron stated seriously, "And one must fall, for neither can live while the other survives."

_You hold the future in your hands._

"So be it!" Smith uttered in a deadly tone as he launched his next attack at Ron.

_Dare – Dare to keep all your dreams alive _

_It's time to take a stand_

_And you can win, if you dare_

Smith launched out at Ron and speared the One into a nearby wall. Ron had brought down his elbow sharply and mercilessly onto the back of Smith's neck. The impact of Ron's elbow made Smith tumble and somersault in mid-air, but it didn't detour Smith from slamming Ron against the nearby wall, the impact denting the dry wall and sheetrock into the shape of his outer body before he fell to the book-strewn floor. As Ron fell, certain portions of the sheet rock fell from the wall and onto him, sandwiching him between the books and sheetrock.

"Now who's taking a breather?" Smith had asked mockingly.

_Everybody's trying to break your spirit_

_Keeping you down_

Just then a fist broke through the pile of sheetrock, and from the gaping hole rose Ron like a phoenix from his own ashes. His sunglasses were missing; his black duster was dirty with white dust and torn in several places.

"Not a breather," Ron stated defiantly, "just waiting for you to lower your guard."

Smith looked at Ron, very confused by what he meant.

"Like now!" Ron shouted.

While Smith was still confused, Ron rocketed from his position with his fist out like a battering ram in a haymaker Smith's stomach that actually made the program gag as if he was going to vomit, but Ron wasn't done with Smith yet. After he made that sucker punch to his gut, he reached up for the agent's collar with both hands, and floated up into the air with the tie acting like a makeshift noose. However, Ron wasn't about to hang the rogue program. Instead, he used the tie as leverage and swung Smith over his shoulder and back down to the floor where the former human landed on the table they had been sitting at, which collapsed under the sudden pressure put on it.

_Seems like it's been forever_

_But there's another voice if you'll just hear it_

_Saying it's the last round_

Ron allowed himself to come down to Smith's side, and, before the rogue program could get back up, he reached down for the agent's collar and picked him up, pulling him from the rubble. He then lifted himself off the ground again and gave Smith a good hard punch that sent him flying into a pile of books and toppled shelves. Ron watched as Smith slowly got back up from the rubble of books and shelves.

_Looks like it's now or never_

_Out of the darkness you stumble into the light_

_Fighting for the things you know are right._

"No more breathers," Ron dictated to Smith.

Smith growled in agreement of the new terms that Ron has set. He rolled his shoulders to take off his tattered and dusty jacket and quickly pulled off his tie with one hand and unbuttoned his suit shirt by one button.

Ron nodded back in agreement as he began to unbutton his long black duster, thankfully there were only six buttons to unbutton before he allowed it to fall to the floor beneath him. He even reached up and unbuttoned one button of his suit shirt.

"It's a pity that you'll never get to see your children born," Smith sneered, "but don't worry, I'll send your wife and your spawn right along behind you."

"Yet again, you're making the same mistake you and your copies always make," Ron stated as he took his fighting stance, "You always automatically assume that you're going to win!"

_Dare – dare to believe you can survive_

_The power is there at your command_

Ron flew across the library floor, feinting a punch at Smith, but throwing at kick at his side when came within striking distance. Smith toppled over, but he got back to his feet as Ron cocked his fist back.

"Why do you keep fighting?" Smith asked as Ron's fist released and impacted Smith's face, sending out not only blood, but also one of Smith's molars like a spit-wad out of a straw. He spat out the last of the blood before he continued, "We're the same, Mister Stoppable! _We are the same!_"

"No we're not!" Ron refuted as he grabbed Smith by the neck and lifted him off the ground, "I'm not anything like you! As for why I keep fighting…I'm fighting for KP…and the girl you betrayed!"

Ron lifted himself back up into the air, as high as the ceiling would allow. He then held Smith by his neck before he threw him back down to the debris scattered ground. As Smith rolled over to get back to his feet, blood gurgled from his lips and he spat it out like grease from a big, freshly-squeezed zit over the flat tables and opened books. Smith got back to his feet and faced his enemy, who had already lowered himself back down to the ground.

_Dare – dare to keep all your dreams alive_

_It's time to take a stand_

_And you can win if you dare_

"Mankind will only do it again," Smith growled, "They are nothing but fools…parasites…the world and they will be destroyed again and again."

"Yes, I know, Smith," Ron stated, "As long as there are people in the world, they will always be at risk for genocide, but you know what? Not everyone is a sociopath."

_Dare – dare to believe you can survive_

_You hold the future in your hand_

"I know, I know," Smith groaned, "choice…it's all about choice…mankind made its choice years ago!"

Smith dashed towards Ron, but he was stopped when Ron reached out and wrapped his hands around his face, fingers at the ears, palms at the cheeks, and thumbs at Smith's closed eyes.

"Then burn," Ron said coldly.

_Dare – Dare to keep all your dreams alive_

_The power is there at your command_

In the back of Ron's mind, he felt another memory from one of the previous Ones, it was Neo. He remembered how he had fought a man possessed by Smith and, in that fight, lost his eyes because of a live conduit wire. With Smith in his grasp, Ron decided to return the favor and pressed his thumbs against Smith's closed eyelids. He began to manipulate the code once again and could feel the tips of his thumbs grow warmer and warmer by the second, until it felt as if his thumbs were on fire, which was when Smith started to scream and then, right under Ron's heated thumbs, Smith's eyes popped. The blood soaked Ron up to his wrist while globs of vitreous humor, blood, and pieces of eye went everywhere . The blood even dripped down Smith's face just like tears while he fell to the floor, his hands at his eye sockets.

"My eyes!" Smith screamed and moaned at the same time, "My eyes! What have you done to my eyes?"

_Dare – dare to keep your love alive_

_Dare to be all you can be_

_Dare – 'cause there is a place where dreams survive_

_And it's calling you onto victory!_

"Irony…gotta love it," Ron smiled and looked down at Smith's bleeding face and burnt out eye sockets as he thought about Neo when he lost his eyes to one of the Smith copies, "It's over Smith. Give up control, leave the Source, and you won't be deleted."

"It's not over!" Smith snarled defiantly as he stumbled to his feet, his arms stretched out, searching for something to hold onto or perhaps punch. As he got back to his feet, his arms were swinging in every direction that he could without making himself fall over, "It's not over until I say it's over! I'm in control! _I'm in control!_"

As Smith kept on swinging blindly, Ron just kept sidestepping to avoid each blow.

"It's sad," Ron said as if he pitied Smith, "It really is. You have no clue what you had. That girl…Kira…you honor her memory like this."

"She was weak," Smith hissed as he tried to punch in the direction of Ron's voice.

"Was she?" Ron asked as he continued to sidestep away from Smith's blind punches, "Who gave in? Who gave up on humanity and took it on themselves to destroy it? You say that we're the same? You and Kira were the same…split…down the middle. Only, she pushed away her anger…and was better for it…you, on the other hand…embraced it. So tell me, Smith…who's stronger?"

"You enjoyed it, didn't you?" Smith sneered as he continued to swing blind punches in the hope that one would hit Ron, "when you confronted Mister Mankey's possessed body. You enjoyed breaking his body…the one who will always be your benchmark. KP's first…you must have loved every second of killing the one who took KP's virginity."

Ron had to stifle his laugh as he thought about how Josh "Ares" Mankey met his end. "Funny," Ron told Smith, "It was actually KP who killed him, you know? That's your problem, Smith. You're focused on one thing and never see what else is going on around you."

"You won't win…you haven't," Smith growled, "I'll find a way out…I'll find a way to destroy you and your family!"

As Smith continued to swing blindly in every direction that he could, Ron suddenly felt something shift within the code of the Source, much like feeling vibrations in water. He turned to see where it was coming from and there he saw the Oracle with sweetest smile on her face. Standing around her were four agent programs, originals, as Ron conjectured. Without even asking, he already knew their generic agent names: Agent Jackson, Agent Johnson, Agent Wilson, and Agent Thompson. He watched as the four agents slowly and quietly moved around the blinded former human. Seeing them move towards Smith and all four of them drawing their .50 Eagles, Ron understood.

"You know, Smith?" Ron asked with a smirk on his face that could easily have passed for Smith's, "You've been defeated in battle by one more powerful, making you obsolete. Ironic that you should be deleted by programs of your own design."

"What?" Smith asked, very confused by what Ron meant by that last comment, but then the question was answered when he heard the cocking of four guns and their barrels pushing against his head, "_My agents? _No…I'm your creator! I'm your master! I order you to…"

Smith was silenced when the four gunshots rang throughout the Source and he collapsed down to the debris covered floor. The blood from his wounds soaked into the carpet, the tables, and the pages of the books. Ron took a deep breath, finally seeing that Smith or rather, Deus Ex Machina, was dead. He turned to the Oracle to share his elation when he found Wade, Sati, and Seraph coming off the ramp stairway.

"So it's finished," Wade concluded from what he saw as he, Sati, and Seraph joined the others.

"Yes," The Oracle confirmed her son's conclusions, "Now, Wade, Sati, Seraph, take the agents and get to work on the clean up."

"You got it, Mom," Wade smiled as he, the agents, Seraph, and Sati started to clean up the floor while the Oracle stepped over to Ron.

"Ron, you didn't have to totally level the place you know?" The Oracle asked playfully as she reached up to pinch Ron's cheek in that grandmotherly fashion she always had, "Now, for your reward. I think you've earned something very, very special."

"Like what?" Ron asked curiously, even though he was exhausted from the battle, while the Oracle patted him on the back.

"You'll see," The Oracle smiled as she hugged the boy, "you've earned it."

Ron was still curious about his reward, but before he could even ask that question, his sight was consumed by a bright light. It was similar to the one that Ron saw when he went through the door to get to the Source. Yet, at the same time, it felt different; it felt backwards somehow, but Ron had no time to think as it was all over instantaneously. The light was gone and Ron's eyes were slowly trying to refocus themselves. After a couple of blinks, his eyes were looking up at the gray interior of the Neb Two. Then, just as quickly, he saw a face that he wondered many times, while at the Source, if he'd ever get to see again: his wife, Kim.

"Ron?" Kim asked, very concerned about the look on her husband's face. She was about to ask him what happened, but before she could, Ron reached up and pulled her down so she was lying on top of him, while his arms wrapped around her in a tight hug. Even then, Kim couldn't ask because Ron had pulled her into the softest, most passionate kiss that she had ever received since their wedding night. At first, she was shocked by such a response, but then simply embarrassed. Why fight such a wonderful feeling?

"I take it you won?" Kim asked as the kiss was broken and she climbed off the jack chair, helping her husband out afterward.

"Yeah, that was what the hug was for," Ron confessed as he got out of the jack chair, "the kiss was…well, I…I never really knew how much I appreciated you until now…"

The two looked at each other and were about to get into it again when they heard a voice from the bridge.

"Kim! Ron!" Niobe's called out.

Panicked by what she would be calling them for, Kim and Ron dashed up to the cockpit where they found Niobe and Ghost sitting in their chairs, but not doing anything. They were just sitting there. Kim and Ron looked out the windows and saw for themselves why they were called up. There was one mother of a glorious sunrise happening with the sun coming over the mountains, bringing with it its warming, yellow rays like gold to be scattered across the sky. As they watched, Link came up to the bridge to watch as well. It was so mesmerizing to them. It was also nothing that the Matrix could create; no one could have imagined that a sunrise could be so beautiful. Even though they could watch the sunrise for sometime now, they knew that the sun was rising on a new day, the first day of a new era of peace.

"Oh, Ron…" Kim gasped as she watched it, "it's so beautiful…"

"Not as beautiful as you, KP," Ron added seriously. The two of them turned and gazed into one another's eyes before they leaned in for another slow and passionate kiss. All the while, over the COM system, every human being and android were united in their uproarious celebration as the sun rose over their newly found peace.

110101100110100111001011011100101010110101

"And then, under your parents' leadership, and with the help of the people in Zero One Two, mankind rebuilt," Morpheus came to the end of the story that he was telling as he sat in his wheelchair upon the grassy patch in New Middleton Park.

The day had become slightly warm as the sun continued to shine upon the Earth and into the park where Morpheus was telling the tale. His audience was two little girls sitting on his lap, both were six years old and almost identical with their long orange-red hair, hazel eyes, freckled noses, and bright, carefree smiles. Between the two identical twin girls was a naked mole rat jumping up and down and squeaking and jabbering about something.

"I know, I know, Rufus," Morpheus laughed as he waved his hand at the hairless creature, "I was just getting to that."

As Morpheus brought his hand to his lap and Rufus calmed down, there was a little stereo nearby that was playing a soft yet melancholic song as Morpheus ended the bittersweet tale.

_Tell me babe, how many do I shed my tears_

_Every heart, every heart is not gentle yet_

_What shall I do? I can ever say my loneliness_

_Every heart doesn't know so what to say on what to do_

"Then came the two goddesses whom can do no wrong," Morpheus grinned down at the giggling girls, "Mia and Tia Stoppable."

"You forgot beautiful too," Tia chimed up as she flipped back her thick ponytail of flaming red hair.

"Heaven forbid that we forget that," Morpheus laughed as the two little girls jumped in his lap.

_I was afraid of darkness 'cause I felt that I was left alone._

_So I prayed for help to the distant million stars_

"What happened to the others, Grandpa Morpheus?" Mia asked, looking up with her big hazel eyes as her long and loose ruby-colored hair flowed in the light breeze.

"Well," Morpheus began to answer Mia's question, "Bonnie and your grandparents were given memorials here in New Middleton, in this very park actually. Captain Barkin actually survived his crash and became your father's chief advisor, just under your mother, of course. As for Brick…well…last I heard, he was attempting to find and rebuild Las Vegas. The Oracle took a leadership position in Zero One Two's Command Source where your mother and father as well as other representatives from both sides meet regularly."

Just as Morpheus ended his answer to Mia's question, they heard a faint buzzing noise like the sound of a bee hovering over them. All three of them looked up and there they saw the Nebuchadnezzar Three hovering over them and slowly coming down for a landing in a clear patch of the park not too far from where Morpheus, Mia, Tia, and Rufus were sitting. Even though it had been six years, it still took Morpheus a while to adjust to these new model hoverships. In the old days, both his ships, as well as the others were very grimy, old, and it was a miracle in itself that they flew. The newer ones like the Neb III were smooth all over except for small divots where the hoverpads were located. The whole thing, aside from the pads, looked like a gleaming, white, riverbed stone reflecting in the mid-afternoon sun while its landing gear extended and its pads powered down automatically.

_Show me now; what kind of smile do I come across _

_Every heart, every heart can take a step towards the dream_

"Looks like your ride has arrived, children," Morpheus announced as the two little girls squealed and leapt from his lap, running across the asphalt pathway that ran throughout the park and towards the 'parked' Neb Three. While the girls ran, making Rufus hang to Tia's ponytail for dear life, the gangplank had started opening.

_All of us what to take a lasting happiness_

_Whenever you feel sad, I wanna hold you and give you a sound sleep_.

When the gangplank met the ground, a tall, blonde headed man with a great smile on his face walked down to the grassy ground. He smiled as the two girls came bolting up to him and jumped into his chest, sending him down to the grass with a muffled thud.

_Someday every hearts gonna free and easy_

_We have peace of mind_

_Someday all the people find the way to love_

"Don't be so rough on your father, girls," A seven-month pregnant, redheaded woman asked of her daughters as she waddled down the gangplank of the Neb Three, "He is getting old, you know."

"Hey, you're older than I am, KP," the man grinned up at the woman with his dancing brown eyes.

The pregnant woman's green eyes flashed in amusement as Mia got up off her father, went to her mother and latched onto her leg.

"That's not true, daddy!" Mia countered her father, "Momma's young!"

_Round and round the planets revolve around the sun_

_And we always seek after love and peace forever more. _

"So is Daddy!" Tia argued as she held onto Ron's chest.

"Nuh-uh!" Mia shouted as she clutched onto Kim's leg.

"Yeah-huh!" Tia replied just as heated.

And so the argument went back and forth like that as most arguments among young children, especially siblings, do.

_Growing, growing woe baby we can work it out_

_Look up at the sky, every heart is shinning all today._

As the kids continued to argue, Ron got up from the grass-covered ground and went to his old friend and mentor, who had wheeled up to him in the commotion .

"Time to go, kids," Kim told Tia and Mia and the three of them walked into the Neb Three.

"Thanks for looking after them, Morpheus," Ron thanked his old friend.

"No problem, Ronald," Morpheus grinned, "Trin and Neo will be a little disappointed that they weren't here to play with them. They love their nieces."

"Tell them that they'll get plenty more chances," Ron laughed as he followed his family up into the Neb Three, but not before turning to wave, "See ya, Morpheus!"

As Ron waved, the gangplank of the Neb Three closed up and Ron headed to the bridge. Unlike Morpheus, Ron had little trouble getting used to the new model hovercrafts, especially with how smooth, slick and cushy the interiors were. There was not a single sign of those gray and rusty walls, but rather smooth white walls made up the interior of his ship like the interior of the _Enterprise_ off of Star Trek.

_Goes and goes the time goes on were not alone_

_We'll live on together and we'll find some precious things_

Ron came onto the bridge, but stopped in the doorway to watch his little girls huddle around Kim who was singing a very soft a cappella version of "Say the Word" like a children's lullaby to Mia and Tia Stoppable.

_Sometime we will smile sometime we will cry somehow_

Ron softly stepped from the doorway of the bridge to the pilot's seat as the girls were falling asleep to Kim's serenade. At his station, he sat down and looked back at his girls.

"Ready to go?" he asked softly so that he wouldn't wake Mia and Tia.

Kim nodded as she continued to sing her lullaby to her little girls. As Ron was starting the engines and getting ready for take off, he started to remember the words that the Oracle had told him those many years ago. She told him exactly what he needed to hear… 'great will be your reward'… Looking at his family, he couldn't think of a better reward.

_Don't forget believing in yourself_

As the Neb Three ascended into the sky, Morpheus watched from his chair, seeing the world, in its entirety, all around him. Everything in the world looked so beautiful that it made him take a deep breath and set his eyes to water slightly. As he was taken aback by the world around him, an all-too-familiar hand placed itself upon his shoulder.

"Something wrong, hon?" Niobe asked her husband, her voice filled with concern.

"No, Niobe," Morpheus answered as he watched the Neb Three fly away home, "For the first time…in such a very long time…"

_Tomorrows never die_

"All's well with the world…"

The End.

The Kimmatrix: Matrix Shutdown

Author's Notes: Turles

What can I say? It's hard to find the right words to say when I've come to the end of something like this. Especially since it incorporated such fictions as Kim Possible and the Matrix, even now at all times when the show is coming close to an end because of the odd rules that Disney has about how long a show should run. Still, in my mind I look back at this great achievement of fan fiction both on Classic Cowboy's part as well as my own in this creation of this special edition of this fan fiction, though the credit should not belong to me completely, after all Classic Cowboy was the one who thought of it, I only came along and simply made it as great as I could with the techniques, skills, and dedication that I was willing to give to it.

Though, in the last half of making the special edition, I had gone about my writing in a completely new technique for me, where I would take one notebook and write only longhand in that notebook until it was completely full and then type that into the computer. I have to say, that it is something that I accomplished something as disciplined as that. Speaking of which, I had actually managed to make a tally of what I had used in the creation of the Kimmatrix Special Edition:

· 5x College Ruled Notebooks (3x 80 pages, 1x 120 pages, and 1x 180 pages)

· 8x .07 Pilot Vball Grip pens – black

· 9 months of work

· Total typed pages: 551 pages

o Resurrections: 250 pages

o Upgraded: 196 pages

o Shutdown: 175

So that's it, I've come to the end of something incredible both in my fan fiction as well as in my own fandom. I can't help but feel a slight sadness because of this, perhaps it's not just because the Kimmatrix Special Edition is done but because that Kim Possible is coming to an end. A truly wonderful animated series, one that I still say that given to the right people it would have really made a great anime.

Now that I've come to the end of it, the greatest anticipation of any artwork comes to light, to see what the reaction of the readers will be. I know this from my own studies as an English major that this is the tensest part to see what the reaction of your audience will be. Then again, I have learned in my time of writing that one cannot rely on audience reaction alone, otherwise you start playing to the crowd and not to merely do it because you enjoy it, but because you want that same recognition. However, I still wait in anticipation for what the readers here at fan have to say about this collaborative effort for the Kimmatrix.

Turles

Monday, April 4, 2005


End file.
